Cyprus and its Conflicts: Representations, Materialities, and Cultures 9781785337253

Table of contents :
Contents
ILLUSTRATIONS
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABBREVIATIONS
INTRODUCTION A Multidisciplinary and Multiperspectival Approach to Conflict
PART I THE MATERIALITY OF CONFLICT IN CYPRUS
Chapter 1. ICONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY IN CYPRUS The Problematic Rethinking of a Conflicted Past
Chapter 2 SOUNDMARKS OF CONFLICT IN THE CITY CENTRE OF DIVIDED NICOSIA
Chapter 3 BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED...
Chapter 4 FINANCIAL CRISIS, AUSTERITY AND PUBLIC SERVICE MEDIA IN CYPRUS Reforming or Downsizing? An Analysis of Discourses and Critiques
PART II CONFLICT REPRESENTATIONS OF CYPRUS FROM WITHIN (NORTH AND SOUTH)
Chapter 5 THE ‘OTHERS’ IN PEACE TALKS Representation of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in the Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot Press
Chapter 6 DISCOURSES OF LEGITIMATION IN THE NEWS The Case of the Cypriot Bailout
Chapter 7 CHALLENGING THE SACREDNESS OF ‘THE MEDIATED CENTRE’ The Shift in Media Discourses on Bicommunal Relations in Cyprus after the Crossing Points Opening in 2003
Chapter 8 THE CYPRIOT ‘OCCUPY THE BUFFER ZONE’ MOVEMENT Online Discursive Frames and Civic Engagement
PART III CONFLICT REPRESENTATIONS OF CYPRUS FROM THE OUTSIDE
Chapter 9 WHOSE FLAGS ARE THESE? Apollon Limassol vs. Trabzonspor Football Matches in Turkish Online News and User Comments as a Case of ‘Banal Nationalism’
Chapter 10 A TREASURE IN VAROSHA The Role of a Cypriot Myth in the Construction of Turkish Nationalist Identity
Chapter 11 PAX TROIKANA The U.K. Media and the Symbolic Conflicts of the Cypriot ‘Rescue’ Programme
Chapter 12 HEGEMONIC AND COUNTER-HEGEMONIC DISCOURSES OF THE CYPRIOT ECONOMIC CRISIS BY GREEK MEDIA
Conclusion STUDYING CONFLICTS IN CYPRUS Lessons Learned for Conflict Studies
INDEX

Citation preview

Cyprus and Its Conflicts

C

YPRUS AND ITS CONFLICTS

Representations, Materialities and Cultures

Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier

berghahn NEW YORK • OXFORD www.berghahnbooks.com

Published in 2018 by Berghahn Books www.berghahnbooks.com © 2018 Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier

All rights reserved. Except for the quotation of short passages for the purposes of criticism and review, no part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system now known or to be invented, without written permission of the publisher.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data A CIP data record is available from the Library of Congress

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN 978-1-78533-724-6 hardback ISBN 978-1-78533-725-3 ebook

Contents List of Illustrations

vii

Acknowledgements

ix

Abbreviations

x

Introduction A Multidisciplinary and Multiperspectival Approach to Conflict Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier

1

Part I The Materiality of Conflict in Cyprus Chapter 1 Iconoclastic Controversy in Cyprus: The Problematic Rethinking of a Conflicted Past Nico Carpentier

25

Chapter 2 Soundmarks of Conflict in the City Centre of Divided Nicosia Yiannis Christidis and Angeliki Gazi

55

Chapter 3 Bridge over Troubled . . . Susan J. Drucker and Gary Gumpert

77

Chapter 4 Financial Crisis, Austerity and Public Service Media in Cyprus: Reforming or Downsizing? An Analysis of Discourses and Critiques Lia-Paschalia Spyridou and Dimitra L. Milioni

99

Part II  Conflict Representations of Cyprus from Within (north and south) Chapter 5 The ‘Others’ in Peace Talks: Representation of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in the Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot Press Christophoros Christophorou and Sanem Şahin

123

Contents

Chapter 6 Discourses of Legitimation in the News: The Case of the Cypriot Bailout Vaia Doudaki Chapter 7 Challenging the Sacredness of ‘the Mediated Centre’: The Shift in Media Discourses on Bicommunal Relations in Cyprus after the Crossing Points Opening in 2003 Christiana Karayianni Chapter 8 The Cypriot ‘Occupy the Buffer Zone’ Movement: Online Discursive Frames and Civic Engagement Venetia Papa and Peter Dahlgren

142

163

182

PART III CONFLICT REPRESENTATIONS OF CYPRUS FROM THE OUTSIDE Chapter 9 Whose Flags Are These? Apollon Limassol vs. Trabzonspor Football Matches in Turkish Online News and User Comments as a Case of ‘Banal Nationalism’ D. Beybin Kejanlioglu and Serhat Güney Chapter 10 A Treasure in Varosha: The Role of a Cypriot Myth in the Construction of Turkish Nationalist Identity Aysu Arsoy Chapter 11 Pax Troikana: The U.K. Media and the Symbolic Conflicts on the Cypriot ‘Rescue’ Programme Giulia Airaghi and Maria Avraamidou Chapter 12 Hegemonic and Counter-hegemonic Discourses of the Cypriot Economic Crisis by Greek Media Yiannis Mylonas Conclusion Studying Conflicts in Cyprus: Lessons Learned for Conflict Studies Nico Carpentier Index

205

228

246

268

290

300 . . . vi . . .

ILLUSTRATIONS FIGURES 1.1. 108 steps

33

1.2. Colonial justice

34

1.3. Out of reach

35

1.4. Gasoline

35

1.5. Flag-bird

36

1.6. Threshing-floor

36

1.7. The ecstasy of freedom

37

1.8. Grivas with child

38

1.9. The Louroujina salient

43

1.10. The weight of a nation

43

1.11. Church wall

44

1.12. Waiting room

44

1.13. Ihsan Ali’s gaze

47

1.14. Scratches

48

1.15. Companion in life and death (not just now)

48

1.16. Atatürk in front of school

49

1.17. Vanished rainbow

49

2.1. The soundwalk path

62

2.2. Wall-mount speakers amplify the sound of the liturgy taking place inside the church

66

2.3. The speakers facilitate the audibility of the hodja’s call to prayer throughout the city centre

67

3.1. The Blue Bridge, April 2006

86

Illustrations

3.2. Eleftheria Square, June 2014

90

3.3. Eleftheria Square, January 2016

91

9.1. Trabzonspor and Turkish flags

215

9.2. Trabzonspor players

215

9.3. Supporters and club flags

216

9.4. The circled absence of the Turkish flag

219

9.5. The Greek flag in the stands

220

9.6. The slogan ‘Cyprus is Hellas’

220

TABLES 6.1. Legitimation Mechanisms in the News Discourse on the Cypriot Bailout

147

8.1. Chronological Map of the OBZ Events

186

12.1. The Construction of Cyprus and Its Crisis

274

12.2. The Construction of Greece through the Lens of Cyprus and Its Crisis

275

. . . viii . . .

A

CKNOWLEDGEMENTS

We would like to acknowledge the financial support this project received from the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation and the European Regional Development Fund from 2012 to 2014 (DESMI 2009–2010), and from the Research Foundation – Flanders (FWO) (research grant number G016114N).

A

BBREVIATIONS

AKEL

ΑΚΕΛ - Ανορθωτικό Κόμμα Εργαζόμενου Λαού [Anorthotiko Komma Ergazomenou Laou], Progressive Party of Working People)

AKP

Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, Justice and Development Party

BoC

Bank of Cyprus

BRT

Bayrak

CCMC

Cyprus Community Media Center

CDA

critical discourse analysis

CHP

Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, Republican People’s Party

CTP

Cumhuriyetçi Türk Partisi - Republican Turkish Party

CyBC

Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation

DIKO

ΔΗΚΟ - Δημοκρατικό Κόμμα [Democratiko Komma], Democratic Party

DISY

ΔΗΣΥ - Δημοκρατικός Συναγερμός [Democratikos Sinagermos], Democratic Rally

EBU

European Broadcasting Union

ECB

European Central Bank

ECOFIN

Economic and Financial Affairs Council

EDEK

Κίνημα Σοσιαλδημοκρατών ΕΔΕΚ [Kinima Sosialdimokraton EDEK], Movement for Social Democracy EDEK)

EFSF

European Financial Stability Facility

ELAM

ΕΛΑΜ - Εθνικό Λαϊκό Μέτωπο [Ethniko Laiko Metopo], National Popular Front

EMU

European Monetary Union

Abbreviations

EOKA

Εθνική Οργάνωσις Κύπριων Αγωνιστών [Ethniki Organosis Kyprion Agoniston], National Organization of Cypriot Fighters

ESM

European Stability Mechanism

EU

European Union

GDP

Gross Domestic Product

IMF

International Monetary Fund

IW

Cologne Institute for Economic Research

OBZ

Occupy the Buffer Zone

PEA

protest event analysis

PSB

public service broadcasting

RoC

Republic of Cyprus

SIMAE

ΣΙΜΑΕ -Συμβούλιο Ιστορικής Μνήμης Αγώνα ΕΟΚΑ 1955– 1959 [Simvoulio Istorikis Mnimis Agona EOKA 1955–1959], Council of Historical Memory of EOKA Struggle 1955–1959

TMT

Türk Mukavemet Tes¸kilatı, Turkish Resistance Organization

TRNC

Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus

UEFA

Union of European Football Associations

UN

United Nations

UNFICYP United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus VAT

value added tax

. . . xi . . .

I

NTRODUCTION

A Multidisciplinary and Multiperspectival Approach to Conflict

Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier

Conflict, while complex and multidimensional, is also always contextualized: its realization in specific settings and environments produces particular material and discursive outcomes. This edited volume is grounded in the idea that conflict needs to be studied in its environment, to allow for the incorporation of sufficient detail to do justice to its complexity and specificity. For this reason, this volume focuses on a particular setting: Cyprus, an island of enduring political, military and, more recently, economic conflict, which serves as a locus for the examination and analysis of aspects, dimensions and practices of (mediated) conflict and instances of overcoming conflictual situations. The investigation of a multitude of objects of study (print, broadcast and digital (social) media, public art, urban spaces), using mostly qualitative methods (textual analysis, interviews, ethnography) and adopting critical approaches (discourse theory, critical discourse analysis, cultural studies) allows for a multifaceted, multidisciplinary approach to conflict. Thus, with Cyprus as a geographical, cultural and political point of reference, this edited volume studies how conflict is mediated, represented, reconstructed, experienced, rearticulated and transformed, in specific contexts and environments, through a multi-perspectival approach. Conflict, as a universal feature of human society, ‘takes its origins in economic differentiation, social change, cultural transformation, psychological development and political organization – all of which are inherently conflictual – and becomes overt through the formation of conflict parties, which come to have, or are perceived to have, mutually incompatible goals’ (Ramsbotham, Miall and Woodhouse 2014: 7–8). In this book, conflict is perceived within a broad perspective, rather than reduced to only its violent manifestations. It is defined in terms of incompatibilities and con-

Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier

tradictions (Galtung 2009: 105), and is seen as (a moment of) rupture of consent, or as antagonism, which apart from the expressions of (physical) violence and confrontation (which cannot be ignored) includes aspects of division and crisis that can be discursive, material, or both. Crisis, another key concept in this book, is perceived as a dimension of conflict that can be described as a (highly) disruptive event or situation leading to disorder or even disaster, significantly disturbing the lives of people or the relations among individuals and groups. It is usually connected to negative change, or the threat thereof (see also Vecchi 2009; Coombs 2015: 3–4) and can be both the outcome and the generator of conflict. Finally, crisis usually has a different temporal dimension than conflict: it spans shorter periods of time and often features as a (more or less) delimited, condensed, intense conflictual moment that intensifies and/or transforms the conflict. Conflict has many different expressions, in different fields of society, including politics and economy. As it is inherent to the social (Mouffe 2005), it is not perceived as always resolvable, but as ‘tameable’ through democratic practice (Mouffe 2005: 20–21). Nor is resolution seen as the utmost aim of every conflict. However, given conflict’s contingent character, its transformative potential is acknowledged. Whether military, political or economic, conflict is always socially and culturally embedded. Thus, as already mentioned, it can hardly be studied outside its environment, and both its discursive and material manifestations need to be examined to allow for a comprehensive understanding of the idiosyncrasy and intricacy of conflict. The contextualized nature of conflict, whether the latter is highly antagonistic or it concerns tensions between political adversaries, also highlights the significance of its cultural dimension (Carpentier 2015). For instance, in regions and countries ridden by long-lasting, high-intensity, violently antagonistic conflict, indigenous cultures of conflict are developed that expand far beyond military or ethnic clashes to become embedded in the social tissue, impacting on identities and social practices (Alexander et al. 2004). Buelens, Durrant and Eaglestone’s (2014: 4) description of war trauma as a ‘“knot” tying together representation, the past, the self, the political and suffering’, pertains also to conflict. The results of violent conflict tend to outlast the physical confrontation, continuing to feed antagonistic perceptions of social relations and the organization of the state. Mistrust, lack of solidarity, intolerance, vengeful attitudes, and practices of eradicating difference and dehumanizing the opponent are often seen in post-conflict societies (Nordstrom and Martin 1992). Also, the rhetorics and sometimes the practice of conflict tend to become the norm in the different power struggles, and in the struggles for (re)appropriation and (re)territorialization of the main societal discourses. ... 2 ...

Introduction

Dimensions of Conflict The seeds of this book are found in interactions and discussions among all different perspectives and disciplines, which sets the intellectual foundations of an ongoing conversation around issues of conflict. We are particularly pleased that this book managed to bring together scholars, studies and perspectives from both the south and the north (in their different dimensions and variations). The studies included in this edited volume allow not only for the contextualized examination of conflict in Cyprus, but also, through their multiple perspectives, for the investigation of the ways in which the culture of antagonistic conflict impacts on identities, signifying and material (bodily) practices, politics and civic engagement. To serve this purpose, this book is structured around three main dimensions (of conflict): the representations of conflict generated within Cyprus; the representations on Cyprus generated outside Cyprus; and the materialities of conflict. Furthermore, the book’s content is built around two major conflicts that have both affected the island deeply, despite their very different nature. The first is the Cyprus Problem, as the 43-year division of the island is often described. This conflict is characterized by a multitude of crises, some of which were intensely violent. The second conflict involves the economic crisis that peaked in 2013, which affected more directly the Republic of Cyprus (RoC). This book comprises, of course, a far from exhaustive study on conflict in Cyprus, where many other types of conflict are manifest at the political-ideological, economic and social levels (in relation to ecology, labour, [im]migration, gender, etc.). However, the two conflicts that are more closely examined in this book are of particular importance because, apart from their historical, political and economic significance, they are connected with almost every other conflict on the island, directly or indirectly.

A Brief Account of the Cyprus Problem Even though the Cyprus Problem is not currently a high-intensity violent conflict, it is still ongoing. Over the years, it has been reconstructed and transformed, changing forms and configurations, and giving meaning to the many (other) contradictions and conflicts that characterize Cyprus. Furthermore, should a mutually accepted political agreement ever be reached, the outcomes and culture of conflict will linger and impact on the Cypriot society in multiple ways, long after any solution is implemented. To convey ... 3 ...

Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier

the origins and the nature of the Cyprus Problem and facilitate an understanding of the other conflicts on the island, a very brief account of the Cypriot history is provided here. Cyprus’s strategic location in the Mediterranean Sea endowed the island with a turbulent history of successive rulers. Throughout the centuries, Cyprus went through Assyrian, Persian, Hellenic, Roman, Byzantine, Lusignan, Venetian, Ottoman and British periods (Mirbagheri 2010: xxi– xxxi). More recently, the Ottomans replaced the Venetians by conquering Cyprus in 1570–71 ( Jennings 1993: 5). In 1878 the island passed on to the British, and in 1925 it officially became a British Crown colony (Markides 2006: 32). The main communities living on the island at the time of the British rule were Turkish-speaking Muslims and Greek-speaking Christian Orthodox populations, registered as Turkish-Cypriots and Greek-Cypriots respectively. This British policy of separation and control of the island’s two main communities promoted in practice the distinct identities of TurkishCypriots and Greek-Cypriots, over those of (Muslim and Christian Orthodox) Cypriots (Papadakis 2005; Mavratsas 2016). This policy also further fed the two main nationalist projects on the island, which eventually crystallized into two different claims: the demand for enosis – namely, the union of Cyprus with the ‘motherland’, Greece – which was raised early on within the Greek-Cypriot community; and the later counterdemand, that is, taksim, or division of the island, raised within the Turkish-Cypriot community (Lindley 2007). Even though these two claims did not appear synchronously, they both encapsulated the nationalist discourses of togetherness and homogeneity, of Greek-Cypriots with Greece on the one hand, and of Turkish-Cypriots with Turkey, on the other. Following the war of independence (1955–1959) against the British colonial rule, led by the Greek-Cypriot, right-wing EOKA (Εθνική Οργάνωσις Κυπρίων Αγωνιστών, National Organization of Cypriot Fighters), Cyprus became an independent state. On 16 August 1960, the Republic of Cyprus proclaimed its independence (Faustmann 2006: 413–14) with the U.K., Greece and Turkey as guarantor countries. Neither the demand for enosis nor that for taksim was realized. The tensions and violence between the Greek-Cypriot and TurkishCypriot communities, fed by the nationalist projects on each side, did not disappear upon the island’s independence. After a constitutional crisis soon followed by the withdrawal of the Turkish-Cypriot political representation from the Cypriot government, intercommunal violence erupted in December 1963, continued in 1964 and flared up again in 1967 (Cock-

... 4 ...

Introduction

burn 2004: 54–55), causing deaths on both sides and the displacement of approximately 1,500–2,000 Greek- (and Armenian-) Cypriots and 25,000 Turkish-Cypriots (Gürel, Hatay and Yakinthou 2012: 7; Patrick 1976: 343). On 15 July 1974, a coup d’état, initiated by the military junta in Greece and supported by the Greek-Cypriot ultra-nationalist paramilitary organization EOKA B, overthrew the Cypriot government headed by the Greek-Cypriot leader Archbishop Makarios (Cockburn 2004: 65–66). The coup was the climax of a series of confrontations within the Greek-Cypriot community between those attempting to find ways to coexist with the Turkish-Cypriot community in balanced terms, and those who opposed these efforts and opted for enosis with Greece (Bryant and Papadakis 2012: 5; Michael 2011: 31). Turkey realized its previously expressed threat a few days later, on 20 July 1974. Claiming to be protecting the Turkish-Cypriot population from the oppression of the Greek-Cypriots, Turkey invaded the north of Cyprus and, in an operation that concluded on 16 August, occupied approximately 38 per cent of the island. The invasion and the Cypriot in-fighting resulted in heavy casualties, several thousands of injuries and deaths (whose toll is difficult to calculate with precision),1 and left approximately 1,500 GreekCypriots and 500 Turkish-Cypriots missing (http://www.cmp-cyprus.org).2 The events of this period also forced 160,000–200,000 Greek-Cypriots to abandon their homes in the north and flee to the south, and 40,000–50,000 Turkish-Cypriots to flee the south and move to the north (Cockburn 2004: 65; Gürel, Hatay and Yakinthou 2012: 8–10; Tesser 2013: 114). Negotiations for a peaceful solution have been ongoing throughout the past decades, without however producing a mutually accepted plan for reunification. Therefore, the island remains geographically and ethnically divided, with its two main communities living apart from one another. The two communities came close to an agreement in 2004, at the same time when the RoC, (legally) representing the entire island, joined the European Union (EU) (on 1 May 2004). On 24 April 2004, after two years of official negotiations under the auspices of the United Nations (UN), the Annan Plan V – the fifth version of a plan for the reunification of the island, bearing the name of the then UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan – was presented to the two communities for approval by a referendum. The plan, which provided for establishing a federation of two constituent states on the island, was accepted by the Turkish-Cypriot community, but it was rejected by the Greek-Cypriot community and was thus not implemented (Charalambous 2014: 31; Michael 2011: 173–84). Lately there was, as many times before in the past, increased activity in the form of negotiations between the leaders

... 5 ...

Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier

of the two communities, Nicos Anastasiades and Mustafa Akıncı, representing the Greek-Cypriot and the Turkish-Cypriot communities respectively. The negotiations began in May 2015, once again inspiring new hopes of reaching a political solution, and were concluded in July 2017 but, again, no agreement was reached (Smith 2017). In the absence of a political agreement, the Greek-Cypriots, the majority of whom are Greek Orthodox, continue to live in the south, in the Republic of Cyprus, recognized by the international community. The TurkishCypriots, most of them Muslims, live in the north, in the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), which was unilaterally declared in 1983 and is recognized only by Turkey. Before 2003 the two communities hardly interacted at all, but the first crossing points across the Green Line – the UNcontrolled buffer zone that divides the island – opened that April (Demetriou 2007), allowing the Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots to pass to the other side and to sometimes visit the homelands and homes they had been forced to abandon. The population in the south was 847,000 in 2014 (Statistical Service of Cyprus 2015); that of the north was estimated at 295,165 in 2013 (Encyclopaedia Britannica 2014: 143). The Greek-Cypriot and the Turkish-Cypriot communities are not the only ones that live on the island. Small domestic populations of Armenians, Maronites and Latins – religious groups recognized by the constitution of the RoC – live mostly in the south. The significant number of non-Cypriot citizens (20–25 per cent of the total population, according to moderate estimates) (Statistical Service of Cyprus 2013; Mullen 2015) comprise different categories: immigrants (mostly from Turkey, Greece, the U.K., Romania, Bulgaria, Philippines, and Russia), students, army personnel (chiefly Turkish and British, though the latter are usually not counted in demographic data), and pensioners of other nationalities living on the island. A part of the Turkish population living in the north is made up by ‘settlers’. A heterogeneous group, whose numbers are hard to estimate, they consist mostly of Turkish nationals from mainland Turkey who settled in the north during the 1970s, and ‘whose migration to the island formed part of a deliberate settlement policy pursued by both Turkey and the Turkish-Cypriot authorities following the partition of the island in 1974’ (Hatay 2005: vii). Looking at the reasons that triggered and fed the division of the island, it can be argued that they are intertwined with the discourses and ideologies of national identity. National identity can be seen as a specific form of collective identity that is sustained by a dual process: ‘one of inclusion that provides a boundary around “us” and one of exclusion that distinguishes ... 6 ...

Introduction

“us” from “them”’ (Schlesinger 1991: 300). It is, in other words, mainly built around hegemonic discourses of belonging and exclusion. These dominant discourses, articulated by the political and economic power elites but also accepted by many societal groups, justify the construction of the nationstates as natural and beneficial for the people by equating one homogeneous nation with one solitary state (Smith 1991; Anderson 2006). This ideology is not much compatible with heterogeneous, multicultural, multi-religious entities like in the case of Cyprus. The hegemonic nationalist ideologies articulated on the island were largely at odds with multiplicity and heterogeneity and (thus) sought national identities in the connection with the ‘motherlands’ (Greece and Turkey). But even though these hegemonic discourses of national identity were reproduced, acknowledged and widely accepted as ‘common sense’ (Scott 2001: 89) and as ‘normal rather than as political and contestable’ (Deetz 1977: 62), they were, and still are, neither fixed nor free of contradictions (see Mouffe 2005: 18). The ‘myth of the unitary state’ (Ozgunes and Terzis 2000: 408), together with the notion of a solitary national identity on an island with multiple communities, have produced ceaseless tensions and contradictions that fed the conflict even as they have unintentionally left space for the possibility of alternative configurations. It should not be overlooked that voices supporting the idea of a Cypriot identity for all, over the distinct identities of the Greek-Cypriot and the Turkish-Cypriot, already ‘coexisted uncomfortably with ethno-nationalism after independence’ (Michael 2011: 40), and that Cypriotism was effectively promoted by the Cypriot left after 1974 with the aim of denationalizing the Cyprus Problem (ibid.). Also, the idea of the establishment of one country where the communities of Cyprus would coexist peacefully was one of the foundations on which the RoC was initially built, in 1960 (ibid.: 27), even though at the time many saw this situation as only temporary.

The Media in Cyprus and Their Representations of the Cyprus Problem This volume does not limit itself only to the mediated aspects of conflict. It devotes particular attention to how both discursive and material practices contribute to the articulation of antagonisms, nationalisms and national identities, and to how these practices sometimes allow these antagonisms to be overcome. Nonetheless, a brief account of the media environment in Cyprus is useful for understanding the discursive context of Cyprus and ... 7 ...

Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier

how the representations of the conflicts on the island are constructed, mediated, perceived and rearticulated through the key signifying machines that (mainstream) media are. This is especially relevant for the Cyprus Problem, since, as a result of the decades-long division of the island and the lack of interaction between the two communities, the images of the ‘other’ were, and up to a point still are, heavily (re)constructed and mediated by each side’s mainstream media. Over the years this process has ‘transformed the experiences, perceptions, and interpretations rooted in the history of the conflict, from scattered suggestive tendencies, from implicit and individual references, to collectivized, crystallized stereotypes and explicit meanings that in turn have come to integrate and condition public culture’ (Anastasiou 2002: 589). Unsurprisingly, the Cypriot mainstream media both reflect the Cyprus Problem and are intertwined with it. First, they mirror the island’s division, as both parts of the island have their own press and broadcasters (Vassiliadou 2007). Also, as is often the case in Southern European and Mediterranean countries (Hallin and Mancini 2004), in Cyprus too ‘there is a strong focus of the media on political life and a tradition in commentary-oriented or advocacy journalism, combined with close ties between the media (especially the newspapers) and the political parties’ (Carpentier and Doudaki 2014: 420), with the media largely acting as ‘propagators of power or elite group views’ (Christophorou 2010: 243). The media in Cyprus are often grouped around the left-right ideological polarization and the unionistnationalist ideological positions (even though demarcations in the political parties’ and the media’s positions on the Cyprus Problem are not always stable or clear) (Charalambous 2014). Alternative media are operative in Cyprus and offer different perspectives of the Cypriot society and its conflicts, but they do not reach a large part of the Cypriot public (Voniati, Doudaki and Carpentier, under review). Mainstream media coverage on both parts of the island has been dominated by the Cyprus Problem, sometimes at the expense of other societal problems and conflicts, even though for a while the attention in the south shifted, at least partly, towards the economic crisis while the Cyprus Problem took ‘a backseat’ (Charalambous 2014: 84). Safeguarding the ‘unitary’ nation-state idea, many of the mainstream media in Cyprus have largely served the binary opposition of ‘us’ versus ‘them’ in national identity building, ‘[t]hrough the demonization of the other and the restriction of the possibilities of recognizing internal complexity and plurality’ (Tsagarousianou 1997: 278). As for the coverage of the Cyprus Problem, ‘there is little or no differentiation on either side; stereotypical phrases, expressions, and the ... 8 ...

Introduction

position that “our” side is the good one who strives for a solution, it’s the “others” who are negative’, thrive (Christophorou, Şahin and Pavlou 2010: 7). Also, as Bailie and Azgin (2008: 57) note, ‘the Cypriot media embrace a conflict-centered approach to peace efforts by shaping news that contributes to the increased mystification of the conflict and to a retrenching of divisive attitudes, sympathetic to a cementing of division’; however, we should add that there are many exceptions to this rule (as this book will also show). The domestic media’s coverage of the Cyprus Problem is not a straightforward task and sometimes proves challenging for journalists when the professional values of fairness and objectivity are juxtaposed to those of ‘serving the national interest’ (Carpentier and Doudaki 2014: 420). According to a study that Christophorou et al. (2010: 7) conducted on the way the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot media presented the Annan Plan, ‘[a]ny view diverging from the official line was sometimes seen as damaging and undermining the community’s cause to the benefit of the “enemies”; also, responsibility for unfavourable developments in one’s own community was attributed to those with views different from the official view.’ In these cases, conflict is manifested not only as antagonism with the external ‘other’, but also with internal ‘others’ within one’s ‘own’ community.

The Economic Crisis in Cyprus A much more recent but still traumatizing conflict involves the economic crisis that hit the island (mainly the RoC), in the early 2010s. Crisis, as introduced earlier, is seen as a particular moment of conflict, a disruptive incident or set of incidents that significantly disturbs people’s lives or the relations among individuals and groups. The economic crisis in Cyprus, apart from the repercussions it had for the lives of Cypriots, brought to the fore a set of social tensions regarding the (re)distribution of resources and the struggle over the endorsed models of social, political and economic organization. The economic crisis peaked in 2013, but the problems in the Cypriot economy had appeared earlier, becoming visible in 2011. From 1974 until 2011, the economy of the RoC experienced steady growth with only minor fluctuations and very low levels of unemployment, social exclusion and poverty (Charalambous 2014: 5). During the years of continuous growth, and especially during the 2000s, the country’s economy gradually became heavily dependent on services, especially banking and financial services, ... 9 ...

Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier

and on attracting offshore capital by operating as a tax haven. According to Pegasiou (2013: 344), who refers to data from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to explain the degree of expansion of the banking sector in the RoC, the total bank assets in the country reached ‘an alarming 835 per cent of GDP in 2011’. Even though the Cypriot economy initially did not feel the shock of the global economic crisis of 2007–2008, in 2011 it started underperforming and was downgraded by the major credit-rating agencies, losing its creditworthiness. As the European Parliament (2014) noted, ‘[i]n May 2011, Cyprus lost access to international [money] markets due to the significant deterioration in public finances as well as the heavy exposure of the Cypriot banking sector to the Greek economy [which was engulfed in an even deeper economic crisis] and the restructuring of public debt in Greece’.3 The RoC’s losses from the exposure to the Greek bonds were estimated at €4.5bn, equal approximately to 25 per cent of the country’s GDP (Pegasiou 2013: 344). Failing to deal with its accumulating economic problems (mainly the contraction of the economy, the rise of unemployment and the surge of its public debt), and unable on its own to support the recapitalization of the Cypriot banks, in June 2012 the RoC requested financial assistance from the EU. Following protracted negotiations, a final agreement between the troika (the EU, IMF and European Central Bank [ECB]) and the RoC was reached in March 2013. The agreement included financial aid (loans) of €10bn, conditional upon the implementation of austerity measures and a later-finalized 47.5 per cent ‘haircut’ (slash) of all cash deposits above €100,000 in the country’s banks, together with the shutdown of the Popular Bank of Cyprus, the second largest bank on the island (Charalambous 2014: 12, 13). The haircut imposed on deposits was a highly controversial decision. No such measure had been taken previously in the EU, directly using depositors’ savings to ‘bail-in’ a country’s economy and its banks. As mentioned earlier, the country’s economy deteriorated significantly during the years of the crisis. Unemployment rose spectacularly: whereas in 2010 it had been 6.3 per cent, it reached 15.9 per cent in 2013 and 16.1 per cent in 2014, with particularly high levels of youth unemployment. In 2015, joblessness dropped slightly to 15 per cent and further to 13.1 per cent in 2016 (European Commission 2017). The RoC’s GDP growth turned negative, with 2.5 per cent recession in 2012, 6 per cent recession in 2013 and 1.5 per cent recession in 2014. The country’s GDP once again grew, in 2015, by 1.7 per cent, and in 2016, by 2.8 per cent. In 2017, GDP growth is forecast at 2.5% (ibid.). The RoC’s public debt surged from 79.3 per cent of GDP in 2012 to 107.1 per cent in 2014, 107.5 per cent in 2015 and an . . . 10 . . .

Introduction

estimated 107.4 per cent in 2016 (ibid.). Although the economic conditions have improved and the country managed to exit the bailout programme in March 2016, the economy is still considered fragile due to its high private, public and external debt; its high levels of non-performing loans (European Commission 2016); its difficulties in refinancing itself (Stamouli 2016); and persistent unemployment. Furthermore, poverty surged in the RoC during the years of the crisis, with unprecedented repercussions for the Cypriot society. According to a study by the Cologne Institute for Economic Research (IW), poverty rose by 28.2 per cent during the period 2008–2015 – the second highest in Europe, after Greece’s dramatic surge of 40 per cent (‘Cyprus Poverty’ 2017). The studies included in this book are concerned with the economic crisis in the south, but a short note is still merited on the specificities and challenges of the economy in the north, which has always been considerably smaller and weaker than that in the south. According to Mullen, Apostolides and Besim (2014: 7), in 2012, the GDP in the south was €17.7bn (at current prices), and around €2.6bn in the north, rendering the GreekCypriot economy approximately seven times larger than the TurkishCypriot economy, though the former’s population was only around three times the size of the latter’s. At the same time, the per capita income in the north was estimated at around 70 per cent of that in the south. The problems and challenges afflicting the economy in the north are mostly related to its status. Since the international community, excepting Turkey, does not recognize the TRNC as a state, the north is highly isolated, largely dependent on the Turkish economy, hampered by serious restrictions on international trade and deprived of direct access to international markets (ibid.: 12). Its non-recognized status keeps the north in a constant state of uncertainty in most sectors of social activity, including the economic sector. As for the RoC, the economic crisis that hit the country and its outcomes are seen here as a conflict operative on several levels. One level concerns the conflict between the RoC and the troika, which combines a struggle over very material resources with particular representations of the country as weak, guilty or irresponsible (Doudaki, Boubouka and Tzalavras 2016). In turn, the troika’s identity oscillates between that of a saviour and a new colonizer. This dimension of the conflict also concerns the imposition of a specific model of organizing the economy (and the state), reliant on neoliberal principles and the use of austerity measures based on these principles. This neoliberal turn has heavily impacted on all sectors of activity, triggering many small-scale conflicts in households, organizations and state agencies. The Cypriot public broadcaster discussed in this book is . . . 11 . . .

Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier

one example. Another level of conflict within the RoC involves political struggles over the desirability and nature of the bailout, fed by competing ideas about the organization of the economy and the optimal policies of dealing with the economic deadlock (Charalambous 2014: 68–83). A third area of conflict is related to the implementation of the bailout agreement, which pitted the state and the people against each other when depositors’ savings were ‘sacrificed’ for the sake of the banking system’s viability and the country’s economy (ibid.). Although the economic crisis had a high degree of autonomy in relation to the Cyprus Problem, a number of connections merit notice. First, and more generally, the culture of conflict developed in relation to the Cyprus Problem unavoidably affects the handling of any other conflict – in this case, the economic crisis. At the political level, some members of the Cypriot political elite are concerned that the economic crisis may have weakened the RoC’s negotiating position, in relation to both the Cyprus Problem and the handling of the economic crisis (Charalambous 2014: 83). At the material level, any economic dimension of the Cyprus Problem (and its solution) is tied to the two communities’ economic conditions and capacity. For example, the recent exploration of gas reserves off Cyprus,4 which could strengthen the Cypriot economy, has been seen also as a vehicle that could speed up the negotiation process towards a common solution. At the same time, though, it has become a source of renewed tensions with Turkey. Meanwhile, analyses of the Cyprus Problem (Lordos 2004; Eichengreen et al. 2004) have argued that either approach – continuing the division or reunifying the island – would have major economic implications, and have viewed the island’s reunification as a tool for boosting the economic fortunes of both parts of Cyprus (Mullen, Apostolides and Besim 2014).

Book Structure and Contents The book has three main parts. In its first part, ‘The Materiality of Conflict in Cyprus’, the collection of chapters focuses on the material component of the interconnected material and discursive dimensions of conflict. This entanglement consists of, for instance, the material practices that feed into and support discourses of conflict, and the materialization of discourses of conflict into cultural products. Since conflict has a series of implications for political, cultural, social and economic life, its material expressions, together with the interactions with the discourses of conflict and the contradictions arising from these interactions, need to be examined. These material struc. . . 12 . . .

Introduction

tures and affordances cannot be ignored, as they often invite the articulation of particular discourses of conflict (Carpentier 2017). It should not be forgotten that conflict is often about resources, as the most recent economic crisis shows (and as is examined in Chapter 4). Also, material structures have affordances, qualities that allow for actions creating conditions of possibility (Norman 2002) or agency (Latour 2005) – in the case of Cyprus, of rapprochement and coexistence (as shown in the example of alternative media bridges in Chapter 3) – or permit ideological and political discourses of division to be ignored (as in the example of the sounds in the centre of Nicosia that traverse the line of division, in Chapter 2). Reversely, material expressions of conflict can present alignments and dislocations that affect how conflict is represented and thought about (Laclau and Mouffe 1985) (as in the commemorative public art example in Chapter 1). The chapters in this part, despite not studying all aspects of material expression, deal with a variety of materialities (and their interactions with representations) that have not attracted much scholarly attention; the aim is to emphasize the significance of the material, also in its relationship to the discursive-representational. The discussion in this book focuses on the manifestations of materiality encountered in public spaces, public art, the urban environment and public media. In their everyday lives, Cypriots are confronted with multiple contradictions related to the unresolved political conflict that have practical and material ramifications. Foremost among these is the border, the Green Line that divides the capital of Nicosia and the whole island, which has both physical and psychological implications for Cypriots’ lives. Furthermore, material artefacts and signifiers of division abound in the public spaces on the island and can occasionally work to disrupt the divide. Within this context, the first part of the book starts with Nico Carpentier’s Chapter 1, which, after providing a more developed account of the Cypriot history, examines how public art is used to construct national identity, which most often is opposed to the identity of the ‘other’, and how nationalistic discourse is materialized in commemorative public art. At the same time, commemorative public art becomes a relevant case study of how the still dominant discourses of the other as ‘other’ are materially disrupted and dislocated, despite attempts to protect the hegemonies. This part of the book furthermore examines different manifestations of the need to materially and discursively demarcate one’s community in the urban environment, and of practices through which these aims sometimes fail. In Yiannis Christidis and Angeliki Gazi’s analysis in Chapter 2, the existence of one sound community that spans the island’s divided capital, Nicosia, with sound crossing — and ignoring — the Green Line, points to the failure . . . 13 . . .

Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier

of such demarcations. Also, Susan Drucker and Gary Gumpert’s examination of the materiality (and discursivity) of three types of Cypriot bridges in Chapter 3 shows how these bridges create possibilities for new spaces of communication and simultaneously highlight the constraints in, and sometimes the impossibility of, bridging the divide. This first part of the book also investigates the materiality of economic conflict, which concerns struggles over both resources and the organization of the state, its sectors and services. Chapter 4, by Lia-Paschalia Spyridou and Dimitra L. Milioni, focuses on how the Greek-Cypriot public service media organization (Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation, CyBC) deals with a set of conflicts resulting from the economic crisis, the questioning of the role and necessity of public service media in times of scarce economic resources, and the broader crisis in the journalistic profession, manifested through an internal tension between innovation and established ideas about journalism. This chapter elaborates on how the economic crisis exacerbated those conflicts in a media organization that serves as an example of how financial tensions both impel changes in material conditions and create opportunities for rearticulation of the main discourses about the organization of the state and its institutions (including public-service media). In this case, one level of conflict concerns a struggle for hegemony between the statist culture that until recently dominated the Cypriot state, and the neoliberal logics that actively emerged in Cyprus during the economic crisis. The second part of the book, ‘Conflict Representations of Cyprus from Within (north and south)’ concentrates on the discursive and representational aspects of the material/discursive dimensions of conflict. This part’s analyses concern representations constructed from within Cyprus, rather than deriving from the media and communication practices of historical and cultural allies and ‘motherlands’ (e.g. Turkey or Greece). The ways conflict is (re)presented through cultural products and practices, political discourses and the media, are crucial in the social construction of conflict (see Jabri 1996; Wilmer 1998; Hall et al. 1978; Berger and Luckmann 1967). Domestic dominant representations of conflict instructed by the ideologies of a ‘unified national identity’ and of the ‘national interest’ usually lead to the prominence of divisive media discourses on the ‘self’ and the ‘other’ (often seen as the enemy) through the construction of elementary dichotomies – good/evil, just/unjust, innocent/guilty, rational/irrational, civilized/ barbaric, heroic/cowardly – that demonize the other whilst heroizing and exonerating the self (Carpentier 2015; Wolfsfeld 2004; Galtung 2002; Bailie and Azgin 2008). Also, in the case of economic conflict we can find appeals to ‘save the country’ from ‘economic disaster’ by accepting the dominant . . . 14 . . .

Introduction

neoliberal policies (and the troika’s austerity politics) (Doudaki 2015; Doudaki et al. 2016; Mylonas 2014). In addition, discursive coping strategies are articulated to protect the identities and legitimate the roles of all parties involved, presented as benevolent helpers or victims of economic misfortune. The analyses in this second part concern print and broadcast Cypriot mainstream media, as well as digital and social media outside the mainstream media market, on both sides of the island. Important moments in contemporary Cypriot history serve as examples to study how conflict is represented, mediated, reconstructed and reappropriated, and whether citizen initiatives are taken to offer different interpretations or to overcome the conflict, the division and the economic crisis. As mentioned earlier, the media have a crucial role in national identity building and protection of a dominant (political and economic) order. This part of the book first addresses issues of reconstructed and mediated national identity on both parts of the island. In Chapter 5, analysing the Cypriot press coverage of the two communities leaders’ meetings in 2008 and 2014, Christophoros Christophorou and Sanem Şahin examine the discourses, strategies and practices that mainstream media use to articulate the national identity through the construction of ‘us’ in relation to the ‘other’. In addition, ‘otherness’ is examined in a broader perspective that includes third parties to the conflict, as well as groups within communities. Chapter 6, written by Vaia Doudaki, looks at the signing of the bailout agreement between the RoC and the troika as an example of how the Greek-Cypriot mainstream media promote and legitimate hegemonic discourses, even when these discourses are about highly contested issues like the ‘haircut’ of bank deposits. Furthermore, in moments of crisis or in extraordinary incidents, the mainstream media find themselves anxiously uncertain about how to cover the events, since established norms and routinized patterns may be unsuitable. One instance, the opening of the crossing points in 2003 that for the first time since 1974 allowed members of the two communities to ‘pass to the other side’, permits examination of how conflict is represented and framed in moments where not only the sociopolitical reality but also media practices and routines are disrupted. In Chapter 7, Christiana Karayianni takes this opportunity to study how the GreekCypriot media, after failing to maintain their previously well-established discourse on bicommunal relations in Cyprus, tried to re-territorialize the new event within the established hegemonic discourse in order to maintain their privileged right to represent the major issues of the Greek-Cypriot society. Finally, in Chapter 8, using the example of the Occupy the Buffer Zone (OBZ) movement, Venetia Papa and Peter Dahlgren examine whether . . . 15 . . .

Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier

the participatory potential within the digital media channels creates opportunities to transform or overcome conflict by creating spaces for the free expression, self-representation and engagement of civil society actors. This chapter also addresses the limitations of such endeavours in cultures of rigid ideological positions entrenched by division. The collection of chapters in the third part of the book, ‘Conflict Representations of Cyprus from the Outside’, adds a level of multi-perspectivity to this volume by examining how conflict in relation to Cyprus is represented from an external standpoint. Such portrayals of conflict are particularly relevant, as they not only complement the domestically driven and produced depictions and reconstruction of conflict, but also allow for the re-examination of a set of issues connected to conflict representation in a broader perspective, such as the processes and practices of domestication of foreign news (Clausen 2004; Alasuutari, Qadir and Creutz 2013), or the often tense relationship between journalistic professional values and ‘national loyalty’ (Nossek 2004; Christophorou, Şahin and Pavlou 2010; Bläsi 2004). Moreover, as violent conflict and crisis are considered highly newsworthy, according to numerous studies on news values and newsroom practices, specific events and actions are favoured over processes for simplicity’s sake, a practice that often conveniently reduces long-term policies and complex issues to a two-sided dispute (Harcup and O’Neill 2001; Lengauer, Esser and Berganza 2012; Milioni et al. 2015). Such routines have considerable implications for how political, military and economic conflict is presented to, and perceived by, audiences with no personal experience of the conflict. The cases selected in this third part serve as examples of conflict representations from the different perspectives of three parties that still have a special affiliation with the island, as they are Cyprus’s three ‘guarantor’ countries (see above). More specifically, these essays include the perspective of a country that is defined by the Greek-Cypriot community as the ‘other’ and the enemy, and by the official elite of the Turkish-Cypriot community as its main ally (Turkey); the perspective of a country that is defined, reversely, as the Greek-Cypriot community’s major ally, and faces economic problems like those of the RoC (Greece); and the perspective of a third party that is closely related by its colonial history (the U.K.). In Chapter 9, within the first perspective, a football match between a Greek-Cypriot and a Turkish team, and its coverage by Turkish online news media, provides Beybin Kejanlioglu and Serhat Güney with an opportunity to study issues of banal nationalism and the role of media in reconstructing the conflict through nationalist discourses. Within the same perspective, but from an audience (and user-generated content) standpoint, Aysu Arsoy investigates, . . . 16 . . .

Introduction

in Chapter 10, how myths are used to narrate and re-historicize the Cyprus Problem, legitimating the Turkish hegemonic nationalist narrative. Chapter 11, by Giulia Airaghi and Maria Avraamidou, uses the 2013 troika ‘rescue’ plan for Cyprus to analyse the conflict between the hegemonic powers (troika and Germany) and a weak actor (Cyprus) from the perspective of a third, strong international actor (the U.K.). The examination of the crisis from a U.K. perspective reveals both support for the hegemony of capitalism and criticism of the troika’s and Germany’s hegemonic practices, but in ways that reaffirm British Euroscepticism (before the Brexit) and promote consensus with the domestic hegemonic discourses. Finally, the Greek mainstream media’s coverage of the Cypriot economic crisis provides Yiannis Mylonas with an example by which to examine, in Chapter 12, how the Greek media use the crisis in Cyprus and its outcomes to articulate the hegemonic and counterhegemonic discourses on the terms and conditions of the domestic economic crisis in Greece. In the conclusion, Nico Carpentier provides a theoretically informed reflection on how the lessons learned pertain to conflict studies. Based on the examination of conflict from a discursive-material and internal-external perspective, his considerations are informed by the interconnections among the authors’ findings and analyses. This conclusion touches on several problematics that are deemed relevant for conflict studies. One cluster of problematics deals with the political, emphasizing the importance of the politics of history and memory, including the process of amnesia. A second cluster relates to the cultural, highlighting the need for a stronger presence of the cultural dimension, together with an argument for better theorizing the interactions of the discursive and the material in what is called the ‘discursivematerial knot’.

Vaia Doudaki is Associate Professor in Media and Communication Studies at the Department of Informatics and Media of Uppsala University. Her research focuses on the study of representations, identities and discourse, within and through media. Her most recent work, on the discourses and framing of the economic crisis, has been published in journals such as Journalism, European Journal of Communication and Javnost – The Public. Nico Carpentier is Professor in Media and Communication Studies at the Department of Informatics and Media of Uppsala University. In addition, he holds two part-time positions as Associate Professor at the Communication Studies Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB, Free . . . 17 . . .

Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier

University of Brussels) and Docent at Charles University in Prague, and is furthermore a Research Fellow at the Cyprus University of Technology and Loughborough University. His latest book is The Discursive-Material Knot: Cyprus in Conflict and Community Media Participation.

Notes 1.

It is not easy to provide an accurate account of the military and civilian losses caused by the prolonged conflict and the Turkish invasion. The website of the Press and Information Office of the RoC mentions that ‘over 3,000 persons were killed’ as a result of the Turkish invasion. Source: http://www.moi.gov.cy/. 2. By 30 June 2017, the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus had managed to recover, identify and return to their families the remains of 582 Greek-Cypriots and 184 Turkish-Cypriots, out of the 2,001 persons (493 Turkish-Cypriots and 1,508 Greek-Cypriots) ‘who went missing during the inter-communal fighting of 1963 to 1964 and the events of 1974’ (http://www.cmp-cyprus.org). 3. In March 2012, as part of Greece’s second bailout agreement, Greek sovereign bonds owned by private investors lost 53.5 per cent of their face value (equal to overall losses of around 75 per cent). 4. The gas fields discovered in the region are the Aphrodite (Cyprus), Zohr (Egypt), Leviathan and Tamar (Israel) deposits. http://in-cyprus.com/hope-yet-for-a-cyprus-gas-hub/.

References Alasuutari, P., A. Qadir and K. Creutz. 2013. ‘The Domestication of Foreign News: News Stories Related to the 2011 Egyptian Revolution in British, Finnish and Pakistani Newspapers’, Media, Culture & Society 35(6): 692–707. Alexander, J.R., et al. 2004. Cultural Trauma and Collective Identity. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press. Anastasiou, H. 2002. ‘Communication across Conflict Lines: The Case of Ethnically Divided Cyprus’, Journal of Peace Research 39(5): 581–96. Anderson, B. 2006. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. London and New York: Verso. Bailie M., and B. Azgin. 2008. ‘A Barricade, a Bridge and a Wall: Cypriot Journalism and the Mediation of Conflict in Cyprus’, Cyprus Review 20(1): 57–92. Berger, P.L., and T. Luckmann. 1967. The Social Construction of Reality: A Treatise in the Sociology of Knowledge. New York: Anchor Books. Bläsi, B. 2004. ‘Peace Journalism and the News Production Process’, Conflict and Communication Online 3(1/2). Retrieved 3 March 2014 from http://www.cco.regener-online.de/2004/ pdf_2004/blaesi.pdf.

. . . 18 . . .

Introduction Bryant, R., and Y. Papadakis. 2012. ‘Introduction: Modalities of Time, History, and Memory in Ethnonational Conflicts’, in Y. Papadakis and R. Bryant (eds), Cyprus and the Politics of Memory: History, Community and Conflict. London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 1–26. Buelens, G., S. Durrant and R. Eaglestone. 2014. ‘Introduction’, in G. Buelens, S. Durrant and P. Eaglestone (eds), The Future of Trauma Theory: Contemporary Literary and Cultural Criticism. London: Routledge, pp. 1–8. Carpentier, N. 2015. ‘Introduction: Strengthening Cultural War Studies’, in N. Carpentier (ed.), Culture, Trauma and Conflict: Cultural Studies Perspectives on Contemporary War, 2nd edn. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 1–20. Carpentier, N. 2017. The Discursive-Material Knot: Cyprus in Conflict and Community Media Participation. New York: Peter Lang. Carpentier, N., and V. Doudaki. 2014. ‘Community Media for Reconciliation: A Cypriot Case Study’, Communication, Culture & Critique 7(4): 415–34. Charalambous, G. 2014. Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis. Nicosia: PRIO Cyprus Centre. Christophorou, C. 2010. ‘Greek Cypriot Media Development and Politics’, Cyprus Review 22(2): 235–45. Christophorou, C., S. Şahin and S. Pavlou. 2010. Media Narratives, Politics and the Cyprus Problem. Nicosia: PRIO Cyprus Centre. Clausen, L. 2004. ‘Localizing the Global: “Domestication” Processes in International News Production’, Media, Culture & Society 26(1): 25–44. Cockburn, C. 2004. The Line: Women, Partition and the Gender Order in Cyprus. London: Zed Books. Coombs, W.T. 2015. Ongoing Crisis Communication: Planning, Managing, and Responding, 4th edn. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. ‘Cyprus Poverty in Second Biggest Surge in Europe’, 2017. in-cyprus.com, 3 March. Retrieved 25 March 2017 from http://in-cyprus.com/cyprus-poverty-in-second-biggest-surge-ineurope/. Deetz, S. 1977. Democracy in an Age of Corporate Colonization. Albany: State University of New York Press. Demetriou, O. 2007. ‘To Cross or Not to Cross? Subjectivization and the Absent State in Cyprus’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13(4): 987–1006. Doudaki, V. 2015. ‘Legitimation Mechanisms in the Bailout Discourse’, Javnost – The Public 22(1): 1–17. Doudaki, V., A. Boubouka and C. Tzalavras. 2016. ‘Framing the Cypriot Financial Crisis: In the Service of the Neoliberal Vision’, Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism, published online before print. doi:10.1177/1464884916663601. Doudaki, V., et al. 2016. ‘Dependency, (Non)liability and Austerity News Frames of Bailout Greece’, European Journal of Communication, 31(4): 426–45. Eichengreen, B., et al. 2004. Economic Aspects of the Annan Plan for the Solution of the Cyprus Problem. Report to the Government of the Republic of Cyprus. Retrieved 8 May 2014 from http://eml.berkeley.edu/~eichengr/links/final4apr16-04.pdf. Encyclopaedia Britannica. 2014. Britannica Book of the Year 2014. Chicago: Encyclopaedia Britannica. European Commission. 2016. Country Report Cyprus 2016. Retrieved 5 May 2016 from http:// ec.europa.eu/europe2020/pdf/csr2016/cr2016_cyprus_en.pdf. European Commission. 2017. Spring 2017 Economic Forecast - Cyprus. Retrieved 31 August 2017 from https://ec.europa.eu/info/business-economy-euro/economic-performanceand-forecasts/economic-performance-country/cyprus/economic-forecast-cyprus_en. European Parliament. 2014. ‘Role and Operations of the Troika with Regard to the Euro Area Programme Countries’ (P7_TA(2014)0239). Retrieved 15 February 2015 from http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P7TA-2014-0239+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN.

. . . 19 . . .

Vaia Doudaki and Nico Carpentier Faustmann, H. 2006. ‘Independence Postponed: Cyprus 1959–1960’, in H. Faustman and N. Peristianis (eds), Britain in Cyprus: Colonialism and Post-colonialism 1878–2006. Mannheim and Möhnsee: Bibliopolis, pp. 413–29. Galtung, J. 2002. ‘Peace Journalism: A Challenge’, in W. Kempf and H. Loustarinen (eds), Journalism and the New World Order, vol. 2, Studying the War and the Media. Gothenburg: Nordicom, pp. 259–72. ———. 2009. Theories of Conflict: Definitions, Dimensions, Negations, Formations. Oslo: Transcend. Gürel, A., M. Hatay and C. Yakinthou. 2012. Displacement in Cyprus: Consequences of Civil and Military Strife; An Overview of Events and Perceptions. Nicosia: PRIO Cyprus Centre. Hall, S., et al. 1978. Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order. London: Methuen. Hallin, C.D., and P. Mancini. 2004. Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press. Harcup, T., and D. O’Neill. 2001. ‘What Is News? Galtung and Ruge Revisited’, Journalism Studies 2(2): 261–80. Hatay, M. 2005. Beyond Numbers: An Inquiry into the Political Integration of the Turkish ‘Settlers’ in Northern Cyprus. Nicosia: PRIO Cyprus Centre. Jabri, V. 1996. Discourses on Violence: Conflict Analysis Reconsidered. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Jennings, R.C. 1993. Christians and Muslims in Ottoman Cyprus and the Mediterranean World, 1571–1640. New York: New York University Press. Laclau, E., and C. Mouffe. 1985. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso. Latour, B. 2005. Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Lengauer, G., F. Esser, and R. Berganza. 2012. ‘Negativity in Political News: A Review of Concepts, Operationalizations and Key Findings’, Journalism 13(2): 179–202. Lindley, D. 2007. ‘Historical, Tactical, and Strategic Lessons from the Partition of Cyprus’, International Studies Perspectives 8(2): 224–41. Lordos, C. 2004. ‘Economic Aspects of the Annan Plan and the Plan’s Property Proposals’, TESEV International Workshop, 26 January 2004, Istanbul. Markides, D. 2006. ‘Cyprus 1878–1925: Ambiguities and Uncertainties’, in H. Faustman and N. Peristianis (eds), Britain in Cyprus: Colonialism and Post-colonialism 1878–2006. Mannheim and Möhnsee: Bibliopolis, pp. 19–33. Mavratsas, C.V. 2016. ‘The Cyprus Conflict: National Mythologies and Real Tragedies’, in J. Carter, G. Irani and V.D. Volkan (eds), Regional and Ethnic Conflicts: Perspectives from the Front Lines. New York: Routledge, pp. 56–69. Michael, M.S. 2011. Resolving the Cyprus Conflict. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Milioni, D.L., et al. 2015. ‘Conflict as News and News as Conflict: A Multidimensional Content Analysis of TV News in Cyprus’, International Journal of Communication 9: 752–72. Mirbagheri, F. 2010. Historical Dictionary of Cyprus. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Mouffe, C. 2005. On the Political. New York: Routledge. Mullen, F. 2015. ‘Northern Cyprus Demographics: Who Is Voting?’ in-cyprus.com, 25 April. Retrieved 15 May 2016 from http://in-cyprus.com/northern-cyprus-demographicswho-is-voting/. Mullen, F., A. Apostolides and M. Besim. 2014. The Cyprus Peace Dividend Revisited: A Productivity and Sectoral Approach. Oslo: Peace Research Institute. Mylonas, Y. 2014. ‘Crisis, Austerity and Opposition in Mainstream Media Discourses of Greece’, Critical Discourse Studies 11(3): 305–21. Nordstrom, C., and J. Martin. 1992. ‘The Culture of Conflict: Field Reality and Theory’, in C. Nordstrom and J. Martin (eds), The Paths to Domination, Resistance, and Terror. Berkeley: University of California Press, pp. 3–17. Norman, D. A. 2002. The Design of Everyday Things. New York: Basic Books. Nossek, H. 2004. ‘Our News and Their News: The Role of National Identity in the Coverage of Foreign News’, Journalism 5(3): 343–68. . . . 20 . . .

Introduction Ozgunes, N., and G. Terzis. 2000. ‘Constraints and Remedies for Journalists Reporting National Conflict: The Case of Greece and Turkey’, Journalism Studies 1(3): 405–26. Papadakis, Y. 2005. Echoes from the Dead Zone: Across the Cyprus Divide. London: I.B. Tauris. Patrick, R.A. 1976. Political Geography and the Cyprus Conflict, 1963–1971. Waterloo: Department of Geography, Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo. Pegasiou, A. 2013. ‘The Cypriot Economic Collapse: More Than a Conventional South European Failure’, Mediterranean Politics 18(3): 333–51. Ramsbotham, O., H. Miall, and T. Woodhouse 2014. Contemporary Conflict Resolution, 3rd edn. Cambridge: Polity Press. Schlesinger, P. 1991. ‘Media, the Political Order and National Identity’, Media, Culture & Society 13: 297–308. Scott, J. 2001. Power. Cambridge: Polity Press. Smith, A.D. 1991. National Identity. London: Penguin Books. Smith, H. 2017. ‘Cyprus Reunification Talks Collapse Amid Angry Scenes’, The Guardian, 7 July. Retrieved 13 July 2017 from https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/07/ cyprus-reunification-talks-collapse-amid-angry-scenes. Stamouli, N. 2016. ‘Cyprus Heads toward Exit, Leaving Greece as Last Bailout Member’, The Wall Street Journal, 4 March. Retrieved 9 May 2016 from http://www.wsj.com/articles/ cyprus-heads-toward-exit-leaving-greece-as-last-bailout-member-1457114310. Statistical Service of Cyprus. 2013. 2011 Census of Population. Retrieved 9 October 2014 from http://www.mof.gov.cy/mof/cystat/statistics.nsf/populationcondition_22main_en/ populationcondition_22main_en?OpenForm&sub=2&sel=2. Statistical Service of Cyprus. 2015. Demographic Report 2014. Retrieved 15 May 2016 from http://www.mof.gov.cy/mof/cystat/statistics.nsf/All/6C25304C1E70C304C225783300 3432B3/$file/DEMOGRAPHIC_REPORT-2014-271115.pdf?OpenElement. Tesser, L. 2013. Ethnic Cleansing and the European Union: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Security, Memory and Ethnography. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Tsagarousianou, R. 1997. ‘Mass Communication and Nationalism: The Politics of Belonging and Exclusion in Contemporary Greece’, Res Publica 34: 271–92. Vassiliadou, M. 2007. ‘The Cypriot Media Landscape’, in G. Terzis (ed.), European Media Governance: National and Regional Dimensions. Bristol, UK: Intellect, pp. 201–12. Vecchi, G.M. 2009. ‘Conflict and Crisis Communication’, Annals of the American Psychotherapy Association 12(1): 34–42. Voniati, C., V. Doudaki and N. Carpentier. Under review. ‘Mapping Community Media Organisations: A Methodological Reflection’, Journal of Alternative and Community Media. Wilmer, F. 1998. ‘The Social Construction of Conflict and Reconciliation in the Former Yugoslavia’, Social Justice 25(4): 90–113. Wolfsfeld, G. 2004. Media and the Path to Peace. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

. . . 21 . . .

PART I THE MATERIALITY OF CONFLICT IN CYPRUS

I

Chapter 1

CONOCLASTIC CONTROVERSY IN CYPRUS

The Problematic Rethinking of a Conflicted Past

Nico Carpentier

Introduction Due to its strategic location in the Mediterranean Sea, Cyprus has been the crossroads of a multitude of movements and currents. In all probability, its first permanent inhabitants arrived from Anatolia and the Levant, with later populations settling in from the Aegean (Karageorghis 1982; Knapp 2013; Steiner and Killebrew 2014). After an early stretch of independence enjoyed by a number of different kingdoms, the island went through Assyrian, Persian, Hellenic, Roman, Byzantine, Lusignan, Venetian, Ottoman and British periods (Mirbagheri 2010: xxi–xxxi). All of these movements have since crystallized into two populations, currently living separately – Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots – and a series of (religious) minorities such as Armenians, Maronites and Latins,1 as well as Britons, Turks, Greeks, Russians and Filipinos, amongst others. In order to convey anything meaningful about how the Cypriot past is remembered, I must first provide a brief, and therefore incomplete, account of Cypriot history. My account will lead up to an analysis of how statues and memorial sites in the southern part of Cyprus make up a particular and hegemonic history2 founded on celebration of one’s own community, heroism, sacrifice and victimhood, which feeds on the idea that ‘the pain resulting from ethnic conflict belongs not primarily to the real suffering individuals but to the nation’ (Anastasiou 2008: 136). At the same time, this text represents my quest for the rare statues that qualify and negate this hegemonic discourse, showing its contingency. Furthermore, the idea of iconoclastic controversy is grounded in a particular theoretical point of view:

Nico Carpentier

while this text deals with dominant discourses – defined in a very Laclauan fashion (Laclau and Mouffe 1985) as ways of thinking – it is also an account of how the material aspect of these statues and memorial sites relates and contributes to the discursive construction of Cypriot history. Theoretically, this text strives to maintain a balanced and non-hierarchical relationship between the discursive and the material, which implies acknowledging not only that the discursive is needed to provide meaning to the material, given that objects cannot ‘constitute themselves as objects outside any discursive condition of emergence’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 108), but also that the material can invite the invocation of particular meanings. This text, based on four months of ethnographic research in Cyprus – in line with Murchison’s (2010) positioning of ethnography3 – is part of a one-year research stay from October 2013 till September 2014. The main analysis was written up in November 2014, although some later updates were added. Many of the detailed descriptions (and photographs) in this text originate from this larger research project. The interpretation of the statues and memorial sites was mainly driven by a discourse-theoretical analysis (Carpentier and De Cleen 2007), although more explicit attention was devoted to their materiality, an approach that I would like to label a discursive-material analysis that takes the knotted or entangled nature of the relationship of the discursive and the material into account. The search for statues and memorial sites in the south was greatly assisted by the Public Art of Cyprus (2013) database of the Open University of Cyprus.4 In addition, a series of interviews were organized to allow deeper analysis of specific statues and memorial sites discussed in this text.5 Finally, this text claims to be a visual essay, which means that it employs both words and photographs to unlock the complex matter that is being analysed. These two components cannot be separated from one another, and though they must be viewed concurrently, they both retain their autonomy. More specifically, the photographs are not illustrations of the words in this text but communicate the analysis in their own way, on their own terms. To protect the autonomy of the photographs, there is no explicit reference to the photographs in the written text, and they are clustered as subparts of this chapter.

The Inevitable Historical Introduction Cypriot history arrived at a crucial juncture in 1878, when the United Kingdom (U.K.) gained control over Cyprus. This power shift was founded on . . . 26 . . .

Iconoclastic Controversy in Cyprus

an agreement with the Ottoman Empire in exchange for a pledge of protection against Russia (Mallinson 2005: 10). That year also signified the end of a centuries-long dominion exerted over Cyprus by the Ottoman Empire, a hold that took effect when the Ottomans took Cyprus from the Venetians in 1571 ( Jennings 1993: 5). After the U.K. and the Ottoman Empire became belligerents in World War I, however, Cyprus was promptly annexed and eventually, in 1925, transformed into a British Crown colony (Markides 2006: 32). In both the latter part of the Ottoman era and the British period, a significant segment of the Greek-Cypriot elite remained in favour of uniting Cyprus with Greece, an idea known as enosis. This idea was further fostered by the process of Greek independence, initiated in the 1820s, which ended with Crete being integrated into Greece in 1913. From a Greek perspective, the idea of a Greater Greece – the so-called Megali Idea – came to a dramatic end with the Greek-Turkish war of 1919–1922 and the population exchange of 1923, after which the Greek presence in Asia Minor and other parts of what is now Turkey became a thing of the past and the expansion of Greece was halted. Nevertheless, union with Greece remained high on the agendas of many Greek-Cypriots, as the October 1931 enosist riots made painfully clear (Faustmann 2008: 47–50). Resistance against the British colonial presence and the pipe dream of enosis remained the driving forces behind the armed struggles that would ultimately result in the independence of Cyprus. The struggles were led by EOKA (Εθνική Οργάνωσις Κύπριων Αγωνιστών, National Organization of Cypriot Fighters),6 a right-wing Greek-Cypriot organization under the military command of Georgios Grivas that was politically supported by the archbishop and later President Makarios III. Supported by an estimated 25,000 civilians (Demetriou 2007) but never consisting of more than a handful of guerrilla fighters, EOKA commenced its struggle on 1 April 1955 with a bombing campaign and brought the British forces to their knees relatively quickly. On 9 March 1959 EOKA declared that it had attained its objectives, and on 16 August 1960 the Republic of Cyprus proclaimed its independence (Faustmann 2006: 413–14), with the U.K., Greece and Turkey as so-called guarantors. Makarios became the republic’s first President. However, the aim of enosis was not achieved, in part because of Turkish-Cypriot and Turkish opposition. The plea for taksim or division was not realized either (Michael 2011: 24). Even during the war of independence, contrasts between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots had become ever more glaring. For instance, the Turkish-Cypriot community regarded the U.K. forces (partly) as defenders of their interests. Turkish-Cypriots were disproportionately represented in . . . 27 . . .

Nico Carpentier

the ranks of the (auxiliary) police, which was controlled by British colonial forces and targeted (amongst others) by EOKA (Faustmann 2008: 52–53; Sant Cassia 2005: 19). A few years after the beginning of the EOKA campaign, the TMT (Türk Mukavemet Teşkilatı - Turkish Resistance Organization) was established with the purpose of defending Turkish-Cypriots from EOKA by force of arms (Gürel, Hatay and Yakinthou 2012: 5), which in turn provoked further confrontations, with Greek-Cypriot/Turkish-Cypriot violence becoming particularly fierce in 1958. The struggles between the British Army and EOKA, between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots, and amongst Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots themselves were not only bloody: they hijacked the entire island (Crouzet 1973). The death of EOKA commander Georgios Afxentiou, second-in-command after Grivas, played a highly symbolic role in all of this. Afxentiou perished on 3 March 1957 when the British Army uncovered his hiding place in the Machairas Mountains. After a number of skirmishes, the tiny dome-shaped hide-out was doused in petrol and set alight, causing Afxentiou to be burned alive (Holland 1998: 174). Along with nine EOKA fighters executed by the British regime and three other fallen fighters, Afxentiou’s body was buried inside the walls of Nicosia’s central prison, lest his grave turn into a place of pilgrimage. Later on, these ‘imprisoned’ graves effectively did become seminal memorial sites. Furthermore, statues of Afxentiou have been erected all over the southern part of Cyprus, and numerous streets and squares are named after him. The tensions and violence between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots did not cease with the independence of Cyprus. After a constitutional crisis in late 1963, the Turkish-Cypriots resigned from the Cypriot state apparatus and continued to flee to homogenous enclaves all over the island (Michael 2011: 28). Patrick (1976: 343; see also Sant Cassia 2005: 19) estimated that 25,000 Turkish-Cypriots abandoned their homes and fled to these enclaves in this period. It was far from the last stream of refugees. In the same period, March 1964, the UN (United Nations) Security Council voted for the deployment of peacekeeping mission UNFICYP (United Nations Peacekeeping Force in Cyprus).7 Fifty years later, UN soldiers are still stationed on Cyprus. In 1967, mere months after a military junta was installed in Greece (Cockburn 2004: 54–55), the conflict escalated again with a raid by the Greek-Cypriot National Guard on the villages of Kofinou and Ayios Theodhoros. The ultimate confrontation came in 1974, when the same junta intervened directly in Cyprus by letting the Greek-Cypriot National Guard – led by Greek officers – mount a coup d’état against the Makarios regime. The Greek-Cypriot paramilitary organization EOKA B . . . 28 . . .

Iconoclastic Controversy in Cyprus

supported this coup, which resulted in a brief Greek-Cypriot civil war as EOKA B attempted to purge the island of Greek-Cypriot ‘leftists and democrats’ (Cockburn 2004: 65–66). A few days later, on 20 July 1974, a Turkish invasion of Cyprus ensued, leading in turn to the collapse of the Greek junta three days later. In August 1974, during the second phase of the invasion, Turkey’s occupation of more than a third of the island resulted in new streams of refugees, forcing 160,000 to 200,000 Greek-Cypriots to flee the north (Cockburn 2004: 65; Sant Cassia 2005: 22; Gürel, Hatay and Yakinthou 2012: 8–10). From the south, between 40,000 and 50,000 TurkishCypriots fled to the north (Tesser 2013: 114). The island’s demographics were further influenced by Turkey’s policy, particularly in the period 1974– 1980, of incentivizing Turkish civilians’ emigration to the north. The aftermath of these streams of refugees and migrants was an ethnically divided yet – within its own two territories – seemingly homogeneous island, its south controlled by the internationally recognized Republic of Cyprus and its north by the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, recognized and financially supported by Turkey alone. Any historical narrative about Cyprus suffers from a number of limitations and difficulties. On the Cypriot political continuum, historiography became an essential aspect of the nationalist project with the creation, on the Greek-Cypriot side, of the myth of a perennial struggle for connection with Greece. In fact, not every nineteenth-century rebellion arose in service of enosis. Panayiotou (2012) is one author who clarifies that some rebellions were grounded first and foremost in class struggles as Turkish-Cypriots and Greek-Cypriots fought elites together in order to improve their living conditions. The left-right opposition also played a significant role in the EOKA period as the right-wing, nationalist EOKA and TMT came to oppose progressive forces in Cypriot society. EOKA viewed the main representative of the Greek-Cypriot Left, AKEL (Ανορθωτικό Κόμμα Εργαζόμενου Λαού, Progressive Party of Working People), as its opponent, and the party’s members were in some instances effectively silenced by force. TMT also eliminated left-wing opponents, the emblematic example being the 11 April 1965 execution of two union members: the Turkish-Cypriot Derviş Ali Kavazoğlu and the Greek-Cypriot Kostas Misiaoulis (Chatzipanagiotidou 2012: 110). At the same time, the dominant interpretation of history is safeguarded by a series of mechanisms. In the south of the island, EOKA’s heroic struggle forms the backbone of the genesis of the Republic of Cyprus. (Greek-) Cypriots are regarded as a homogeneous community that unanimously supported the struggle for independence, and the pivotal role of EOKA is straightforwardly acknowledged. Grivas and his fighters are celebrated . . . 29 . . .

Nico Carpentier

seemingly uncritically, without consideration of the sometimes brutal force employed8 by EOKA (also against Greek-Cypriots) or the numerous EOKA fighters who perished in accidents. The common denominator, apart from the EOKA leader Grivas, is the fact of 108 fallen EOKA fighters. A considerable part of the collection of the Museum of National Struggle (EOKA), for instance, consists of the personal belongings of the fallen, with accompanying captions often featuring the notion ‘hero’ in combination with horrific images of their killed bodies. These fighters are omnipresent, and their heroism is continuously emphasized. This practice accentuates not only the fighters’ heroism and willingness to sacrifice themselves, but equally the evilness of the British (and Turkish-Cypriot) enemy.

Statues as Materialization of a Hegemonic Discourse The dead fighters arise physically in the landscape of the south. Towns and villages bear a multitude of names referring to dead EOKA fighters, and statues of them are well nigh unavoidable in the Cypriot landscape. Abstraction is seldom encountered here: the statues are frequently mimetic and individualized in nature, though they rarely shy away from symbolism. Often it was individuals or private local organizations that erected these statues, but the centralized government of the Republic of Cyprus also acted to significantly stimulate such statuary by encouraging local governments spend 1 per cent of their annual budget on art (Karaiskou 2013). Besides individual statues, commemorations of the independence war include collective memorial sites erected in some rather hard-to-reach locations, such as the 1955–59 Heroes’ Grove in Pelendri and the Memorial for EOKA 1955–1959 Heroes in Avgorou. The first example is a memorial complex in the Troodos Mountains that combines references to Ancient Greek architecture, displayed at its entrance, with bronze representations of the heads of Makarios and Grivas. Beyond them are the names of the EOKA dead, carved in marble. The website of the Pelendri community council, which describes the 1955–59 Heroes’ Grove in great detail, legitimates the presence of these names as follows: ‘They are there to remind us all those that were killed at the duration of the EOKA fight from the fires of the English army, by the Turks or by others.’9 Having passed the marble list of names, the visitor comes to the Room of the Fighters, with the monumental painting The Anthem of Freedom by Andreas Makariou, on the memorial complex’s lower level. This painting once again celebrates the EOKA struggle (and its leaders). Beyond this building the visitor encounters 108 . . . 30 . . .

Iconoclastic Controversy in Cyprus

marble steps, with next to them plates with the names of the 108 dead. At the top of the stairs stands a chapel that symbolizes the struggle for independence and its alliance with the Greek Orthodox Church. The nearby Monument of Freedom, by Greek sculptor Evangelos Moustakas,10 consists of a wall with relief carvings depicting the struggle for independence and a high column on the right. One of the most striking scenes of the relief is the execution by hanging of nine EOKA fighters. Besides this, individual (dead) EOKA fighters are remembered in a plethora of ways. Monuments can often be seen in both their native villages and the locations where they perished. The dominant form of representation is generally a bust accompanied by the Greek and Cypriot flags. Some of the fallen have acquired special status. Afxentiou’s position in the EOKA hierarchy and his gruesome death make him the clearest example. Statues of Afxentiou may be busts, but in several instances his entire body is represented. In Grigoris Afxentiou Square, for instance, one of his Limassol statues displays him with a machine gun in hand. The location of Afxentiou’s death has also been transformed into a memorial site. The Machairas Monastery, where he spent time in hiding, boasts a small Afxentiou Museum as well as a statue of Afxentiou by Nikolas Kotziamanis that is 7.5 metres high.11 Afxentiou is posed in uniform, in a wide-legged stance with an eagle by his side, a reference to his moniker (the Stavraetos – booted eagle – of Machairas). On one of the nearby mountain peaks, sculptor George Kyriacou12 erected an eagle seven metres high next to a Greek flag. Just beneath the statue of the eagle stands Kyriacou’s second statue: a charred and crumbled body on a threshing-floor, an obvious reference to Digenes Akritas, the hero of a medieval epic who – in later versions of the epic – could be beaten only by Death in a struggle on a marble threshing-floor. Digenes was also the nom de guerre chosen by EOKA leader Grivas. Close to Machairas Monastery is Afxentiou’s actual hiding place, the tiny cave where he was burned alive, now decorated with Greek flags. The annual commemoration of Afxentiou’s death at this location is accompanied by a re-enactment of his last battle. The EOKA struggle resulted in the independence of Cyprus, and unsurprisingly, various statues commemorate this victory. Besides statues of EOKA fighters, numerous statues explicitly celebrating liberation (and the end of the conflict) occupy central locations in urban landscapes. In these instances, the figurative aspect is often combined with anonymity. A female figure symbolizing freedom can be seen at a number of central locations in the south. She is frequently dressed in ancient Greek attire and occasionally adorned with elements referring to the Greek goddess Athena, as is . . . 31 . . .

Nico Carpentier

the case with the Liberty Monument in front of the church of Agios Pavlos in Nicosia. The most detailed group of statues is found in Nicosia, on the Venetian city walls. A female figure is once again at the top, but beneath her stand two armed EOKA fighters opening a barred fence that has been chained shut. Blissfully ecstatic Cypriots are leaving their dungeon through this opened fence (see also Loizidou 2010). The statues memorializing the EOKA struggle of the 1950s are materializations of a hegemonic discourse about a struggle for freedom that became a social imaginary, or the horizon that ‘is not one among other objects but an absolute limit which structures a field of intelligibility and is thus the condition of possibility of the emergence of any object’ (Laclau 1990: 64). This particular Cypriot discourse is based on nodal points such as freedom and liberation, justice, unity and heroism. The keystone of this hegemony is the emphasis on the self-sacrifice and suffering that support this notion of heroism, since any contestation or nuance could inevitably undermine the very meaningfulness of self-sacrifice. At the same time, these statues are places that endorse the weakened but still very present Greek(-Cypriot) nationalist discourse. Like certain private houses and premises of right-wing nationalist associations and parties, the monuments are locations that ensure the presence of Greek flags and white-and-blue colours in urban and rural Cypriot landscapes. As materializations they are dependent on interpretation, but their materiality also invites particular interpretations and supports hegemonic articulations. Moreover, these statues and memorial sites also form privileged locations for commemorative services, which take place with a certain degree of regularity. Yet their actual construction has not always been self-evident, and can offer opportunities for contestation. One example is Grivas’ gravesite in Limassol, where his statue was later erected and inaugurated on 27 January 2002.13 The grave and statue form part of a large open space that also contains one of the ships – the Siren – used to smuggle weapons and bring Grivas to Cyprus. This space used to be the garden of the house where Grivas resided in a secret room, still forging plans to establish enosis (Cockburn 1997). Although construction of the statue next to Grivas’ grave was approved, plans to extend the site with a library and an educational-cultural centre, amongst other ideas, met with fierce opposition. Limassol’s local council, on which left-wing parties were in the majority, refused planning permission, but the decision was subsequently annulled by the Cypriot High Court. The Limassol community council’s appeal of this annulment was rejected in May 2015, but no visible changes to the site have been

. . . 32 . . .

Iconoclastic Controversy in Cyprus

made.14 Clearly, this political-legal battle will not cause the current monument to disappear, and the profusion of Greek flags and colours remains a strong presence in the cityscape. Just as crucial a nuance is the fact that these statues and monuments form a part of everyday life and have been overgrown by the banality surrounding them. As materializations of a hegemonic discourse, the statues as such invite (or even demand) attention and respect from viewers. But the routine of everyday life does not always allow for this kind of attention, resulting in a cold-shouldering that is reinforced by a tourist industry that exposes the statues to the often uninterested glances of tourists. An example of this is the Monument to Memory and Honour, which includes a statue of Grivas, a memorial tower and a museum containing the Saint George, another of the smuggler ships. Situated on the Chloraka coastline just north of the tourist hotspot Paphos, the monument marks Grivas’ landing on the island in 1954. Once a deserted coastal strip, the area is now completely built up with hotels, restaurants and shops. The monument is wedged in between seafront hotels, and tourists from all corners of the globe treat it primarily as a place to leave their clothes and towels before going into the sea, showing little or no interest in Grivas’ tough pose.

Figure 1.1. 108 steps

. . . 33 . . .

Nico Carpentier

Figure 1.2. Colonial justice

. . . 34 . . .

Iconoclastic Controversy in Cyprus

Figure 1.3. Out of reach

Figure 1.4. Gasoline

. . . 35 . . .

Nico Carpentier

Figure 1.5. Flag-bird

Figure 1.6. Threshing-floor

. . . 36 . . .

Iconoclastic Controversy in Cyprus

Figure 1.7. The ecstasy of freedom

. . . 37 . . .

Nico Carpentier

Figure 1.8. Grivas with child

1974 and the Materialization of Loss From the Greek-Cypriot standpoint, 1974 was a significant moment of loss. The Turkish Army’s occupation of more than a third of Greek-Cypriot territory resulted in the killing of thousands of Greek-Cypriots. A substantial number of bodies were never recovered. The exact count is contested, but a figure of 1,619 missing Greek-Cypriots circulated in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2014, the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus, established by the UN in 1981, counted as many as 1,508 missing Greek-Cypriots and 493 missing Turkish-Cypriots.15 The north of the island was practically cleansed completely of Greek-Cypriots, tens of thousands of whom were forced to flee and lost their homes. Towns like Famagusta, Kyrenia and Morphou came under the control of the Turkish Army. Abandoned to slow decay, Varosha, the Greek-Cypriot section of Famagusta that once stretched for 3.5 kilometres, has been transformed into a ghost town and is no longer accessible. From the Turkish-Cypriot point of view, the Turkish invasion was a peace operation that froze the intercommunal conflict and improved security for the Turkish-Cypriots. Yet the price was high: many Turkish soldiers, Turkish-Cypriot citizens and irregular fighters perished in the fighting, and

. . . 38 . . .

Iconoclastic Controversy in Cyprus

in the reprisals carried out by EOKA B (Copeaux 2008: 263), amongst others. In the south, a large number of Turkish-Cypriots were forced to abandon their homes and emigrate northwards. The north’s economic situation remained precarious, destabilized as it was by the international community’s refusal to recognize the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), and the TRNC’s political and economic isolation (Talmon 2001). After the Turkish invasion, the island, including the capital, was divided in two by a buffer zone, fortified on both sides, that comprises about 3 per cent of the island. This buffer zone runs right through the centre of Nicosia, intersecting the ancient Venetian circular city walls in two locations. At one of those locations, Paphos Gate, the now ruined bunkers stand but a few metres apart. The section at the bottom of the bastion is GreekCypriot, whereas the bastion itself is in Turkish(-Cypriot) hands. The former international airport at Nicosia, heavily fought over in 1974, was declared a safe area by the UN and forms part of the buffer zone. The old airport terminal is now home to a loft of pigeons. In other locations – particularly the more rural areas of Cyprus – the buffer zone is often several kilometres wide and protected on both sides by an endless series of small bunkers. The minefields have largely been cleared, barring certain exceptions, but the landscape remains marked by the conflict. Passage through the buffer zone to visit the other part of Cyprus was not allowed until 2003, and then only at very specific locations. At this very moment only seven of these passages are open, thereby both validating and negating the existence of the buffer zone. The buffer zone is one long, stretched-out materialization of the conflict – a permanent reminder of the Greek-Cypriot military defeat,16 the loss that this defeat entailed and the cultural trauma (Sztompka 2000; Carpentier 2015) it provoked. The discourse on the missing is one point where this trauma becomes extremely visible, particularly in the southern part of Cyprus. As mentioned already, between 1963 and 1974 around two thousand Cypriots disappeared, of whom some three-quarters were Greek-Cypriots. But on the Turkish-Cypriot side the death of the missing was accepted and the missing were viewed as martyrs, whereas the Greek-Cypriot missing – as Sant Cassia (2005) contends – were kept alive by (artificially) feeding the hope of their return. The so-called Five of Tziaos are one illustration of this process. Five Greek-Cypriot soldiers were captured by the Turkish Army and handed over to Turkish-Cypriot irregular fighters, who shot them. Photographs taken by the Turkish war reporter Ergin Konuksever fell into the hands of the Greek-Cypriot Army when he was taken prisoner (with an-

. . . 39 . . .

Nico Carpentier

other photographer, Adem Yavuz). However, the bulk of the photographs, including those of the executed soldiers, disappeared, and the remaining photographs of the soldiers – still alive – ultimately became symbols of the missing. Later on, when the photographer, the Turkish army commander, inhabitants of Tziaos and Greek-Cypriot soldiers all attested that the five had died, their testimonies were ignored. Only in 2009, when the Committee on Missing Persons in Cyprus identified their found remains and returned them to their families, were their deaths recognized (see Galatariotou 2012: 257–61). Once more, statues and memorial sites represent materializations of this loss. In this context, however, they no longer celebrate victory but rather demonstrate, and serve as reminders of, the loss suffered by the GreekCypriot community. The female figure again plays a significant symbolic role, though in a very different configuration: she has been transformed into a suffering mother, a leitmotif that returns in myriad statues referring to this period. It is the mother who plays the central role; only very rarely do we see a grieving father figure as in the Memorial for the Missing in Dali. One example is a 1996 sculpture by Vasilis Kattos in Latsia.17 The hexagonal base supports Doric columns and metopes that represent the (Greek-)Cypriot tragedy. One of these metopes is inscribed as follows: ‘To you who did not die, to you who is no longer alive, to you who did not receive a real burial, to you who I am waiting for.’ On top of the base stands a group of statues representing four bent women carrying a colossal metal platter on which a fire burns. Their faces radiate pain and effort: they symbolize victimhood, absence and suffering, all catalysed in the figure of the mother. These statues augment a number of larger commemoration sites, of which the Alexandros Papachristophorou foundation in Pyrga, with its House of the Missing and the neighbouring Agios Alexandros church, is the most important example (see Sant Cassia 2005: 156ff.). The church is named after the missing son of its founder, Father Christophoros. One of the interior walls of the church is covered with small black-and-white photos of the Greek-Cypriot missing, all framed in wood. Several statues stand in the forecourt and the inner court of the House of the Missing, including a sculpture by Michalis Papadakis18 that depicts a desperate mother crawling at the feet of a young man hanging from a pole. Displayed inside the House is a series of paintings by Kostas and Hara Zouvelou, including The Long March (Sant Cassia 2005: 156–57), which refers to the long way family members had to travel to find out more about the fate of their loved ones. The

. . . 40 . . .

Iconoclastic Controversy in Cyprus

paintings are explicit, leaving little to the imagination – Sant Cassia (ibid.) acknowledges that ‘[t]o refined aesthetic sensibilities these murals could be dismissed as kitsch’ – yet simultaneously they again portray suffering, sacrifice and absence. These statues and commemoration sites present 1974 as an inversion of the triumph of Cypriot independence. Though this independence was celebrated as a victory, 1974 represents a moment of traumatic loss for many Greek-Cypriots. Yet representations of both historical events share a hegemonic emphasis on the justified acts of a Greek-Cypriot community resisting the British colonizer and struggling against the Turkish-Cypriot/Turkish alliance. The emphasis on heroes, missing or dead (or both), implicates the enemy in evildoing. Ironically, the absence of the missing also implies the presence of (the evilness of) the enemy. By the same token, this evilness of the enemy legitimizes the sacrifice of human life, rendering a person’s death worthwhile in the service of justice. This hegemonic discourse about the Cypriot conflict is not undisputed; indeed, it is sometimes undermined by its own internal tensions. An example of the latter is Nicosia’s Tymvos Makedonitissas military cemetery, where the fallen, most of them killed in 1974, are buried. At the far end of the cemetery stands a monument to the Greek commandos of the first battalion from Chania (Crete), whose airplane was shot down by (‘friendly’) Greek-Cypriot anti-aircraft fire. Greece’s secret operation ‘Niki’ had been meant to reinforce the small Greek Army in Cyprus on 22 July 1974. A number of these Greek commandos are buried here with their plane. In the smaller, northern section of the cemetery, Greek and Greek-Cypriot soldiers lie in marked graves adorned with photographs, flowers and candles. The larger southern section contains only unmarked graves, which present a rather surreal sight. This relatively small military cemetery was extended in the 2000s to (re)bury identified bodies. The then Greek-Cypriot Secretary of Defence, Costas Papacostas, declared at a press conference on 27 April 2009 that the existing capacity of 285 was being expanded to 177 graves, and that 699 more graves would be created. The motivation for this decision rested on ‘the creation of more burial space and honour for the fallen soldiers’.19 However, the extra space remained partly unused. In some instances the families refused to have their dead reburied at the Tymvos cemetery. These decisions were often motivated by family members’ dissatisfaction with how the Cyprus government had dealt with the dead, or how the missing were used in the hegemonic discourse on victimhood. The citation

. . . 41 . . .

Nico Carpentier

below, extracted from the summary of a short interview with a family member during a funeral in 2014, shows their pain and grievances: He said that for 40 years he was visiting a grave that was supposed to be his brother’s at Konstantinou and Elenis cemetery. He was upset because the bones of his brother were found in another place. At the cemetery, but not where they had the cross. He insisted that his brother should be buried at the place where he thought he was buried for 40 years. The government accepted his claim. (Summary of the interview of Stella Theocharous with an anonymous family member, 25 October 2014)

An equally painful illustration of how some of the missing were not missing at all is the identification in 2002 of the bodies of forty-six ‘missing’ who had been buried with their identification papers in anonymous graves at the Lakatamia military cemetery (Yakinthou 2008: 23–24). Two families, the Pachas and the Palmas, sued the Cypriot government for criminal negligence. Both families won their court cases at first, in 2010 and 2012 respectively (Drousiotis 2012). The government appealed both verdicts. The decision in the Pachas’ case was affirmed in December 2013. In the Palmas’ case, the affirmation came in November 2015.20 Sant Cassia (2005: 208) mentions an agreement between Cyprus and Greece in the late 1970s or early 1980s that made it possible to exhume the bodies of Greek soldiers from the Tymvos cemetery and send them to Greece. However, it later transpired that the wrong bones had been exhumed, for instance in the case of Stefanos Tzilivakis (Evripidou 2008; European Court of Human Rights, 2009), whose family – like the family of a second victim, Kosmas Gianakakis – filed a complaint with the European Court of Human Rights in 2007. But even before the Court could deem this complaint inadmissible (which it did on 14 October 2014), the government of Cyprus had already agreed to new exhumations (Evripidou 2008). Conflicts like these demonstrate that attempts at the Tymvos cemetery to create a central location for the fallen, both symbolic and material, have not always been readily accepted. Even as the cemetery represents GreekCypriot loss, the site has acquired counterhegemonic significance due to public discussions about how Greek-Cypriot governments have used the missing dead (or the dead missing) and their families’ suffering to keep the hegemonic discourse of Greek-Cypriot victimhood and Turkish(-Cypriot) wrongdoing alive.

. . . 42 . . .

Iconoclastic Controversy in Cyprus

Figure 1.9. The Louroujina salient

Figure 1.10. The weight of a nation

. . . 43 . . .

Nico Carpentier

Figure 1.11. Church wall

Figure 1.12. Waiting room

. . . 44 . . .

Iconoclastic Controversy in Cyprus

Re-articulations and Contestations A great number of statues and memorial sites in the Cypriot landscape support the omnipresent hegemonic discourse that defines the other as the enemy and villain, opposed to the Greek-Cypriot community and its heroism, self-sacrifice and victimhood. At the same time, however, these spaces cannot always be controlled, particularly in light of the activities of local and private organizations that ensure that alternative (and even counterhegemonic) discourses have their part to play. These counter-hegemonic discourses are contested in turn, but overall they offer a material presence for different ways of thinking. Like their hegemony-bolstering counterparts, statues that support an alternative discourse frequently rely on a mimetic representational logic, although they do so by providing visibility to the Turkish-Cypriots and Turks in the south instead. In Paphos, for instance, there is a statue of Ihsan Ali, a Turkish-Cypriot physician and politician who was once an adviser to the Cypriot President Makarios. Ihsan Ali defended both a Cypriot identity – usually referred to as Cypriotism – and the Turkish-Cypriot/Greek-Cypriot friendship from a pacifistic standpoint. He furthermore agitated against foreign interference, including intervention by Greece or Turkey. However, Ali’s opinions brought him into conflict with radical nationalists from both communities (Mirbagheri 2010: 8), and he often received death threats (Sinclair 2006: 15). The statue in Paphos, erected by the Ihsan Ali Foundation, bears the following lines in both Greek and Turkish: ‘Pioneer of peaceful coexistence. Ihsan Ali Foundation.’ A second example, the Kavazoğlu and Misiaoulis sculptures, is displayed north of Larnaca in the Greek-Cypriot village of Athienou, one of four villages in the buffer zone. These two busts, inaugurated in 1997, stand side by side looking out over the buffer zone.21 Beneath them, an inscribed text bids passers-by to remember the ‘heroic martyrs of the Greek-Turkish friendship’. These statues not only commemorate the violent deaths of two AKEL members but also recall the Turkish-Cypriot/Greek-Cypriot collaboration on the left side of the political spectrum. The statues in Paphos and Athienou are forceful voices against the hegemonic discourse because they introduce representations of Turkish-Cypriots into the Greek-Cypriot community and its territory. That said, they also exhibit two other shared characteristics. First, they are not centrally located in the landscape, so they are quite difficult to track down. The Kavazoğlu and Misiaoulis statues sit far outside of the village, just outside the buffer zone, while the statue of Ihsan Ali is situated at the back of a little square in . . . 45 . . .

Nico Carpentier

the old quarter of Paphos. Second, they have been desecrated. In the case of Ihsan Ali’s statue, the desecration has been rather subtle – the dates of birth and death have been crossed out – and the causes are uncertain. The damage to the Kavazoğlu and Misiaoulis statues is more severe: on 26 May 2014, the statue of the Turkish-Cypriot Kavazoğlu disappeared. Several days later three Romanians were arrested on suspicion of metal theft (Psillides 2014). Although agreement that this is not a case of politically inspired vandalism seems to be unanimous, and plans to replace the statue were quickly established,22 at the time of research the socle of the Kavazoğlu statue was empty, a situation that undermined the counter-hegemonic significance of the two busts. A final, more complex example is the statue of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in Pyla, yet another village in the buffer zone and the only village on the island where the original Turkish-Cypriot/Greek-Cypriot inhabitants still live together. The sculpture, a bust of Atatürk, stands precisely in front of the Turkish-Cypriot primary school, flanked by Turkish-Cypriot and Turkish flags. The statue admittedly creates more representational diversity, as it cuts through the dominant presence of Greek-Cypriot heroes in an area that is (partly) inhabited by Greek-Cypriots. At the same time, though, a display honouring a Turkish leader can be perceived as an endorsement of a (Turkish) nationalist discourse. Not coincidentally, several attempts have been made to desecrate the statue. In April 1998 the face of the statue was sprayed with blue paint and the Turkish flag vanished. In August 2008, quicklime was poured over the bust (Vandals Tarnish Image of Mixed Cyprus Village 1998; Ioannou 2008; Doulami 2008). Both incidents resulted in fierce discussions in which both communities in Pyla itself expressly supported the Turkish-Cypriot community’s right to place this statue in front of ‘their’ school, although in a prime example of waffle iron politics, some called for erecting a statue in front of the Greek-Cypriot school as well.23 Instead of dividing the two communities of Pyla, the vandalism prompted discussions about the statue that ultimately contributed to a discourse of fraternization (see Papadakis 1997). The Rainbow, a lost work by Nikos Kouroussis,24 illustrates the complexity and vulnerability of this alternative representational logic. This sculpture used to stand in Agios Dometios, Nicosia, on the Kolokasidis roundabout on the way to the former international airport, close to the buffer zone. Created in 1975, this artwork was placed on the roundabout just after the Turkish invasion and consisted of a square column composed of a series of multicoloured rods pointing skywards. It could be read to symbolize unity, di-

. . . 46 . . .

Iconoclastic Controversy in Cyprus

versity and reconciliation. In an interview25 Kouroussis explicitly described the rainbow as ‘a symbol of hope, a symbol of peace for all people, all religions, all these colours’. The Rainbow sustained a discourse that veered away from a mimetic representation of heroes to advocate an alliance between the two communities while at the same time recognizing their diversity. Yet in 1997/98 the municipalities of Engomi and Agios Dometios refused to restore the work after it was damaged, despite positive advice given by the Ministry of Education and Culture as well as the Monuments Commission (Papadopoulos 2007: 35). What remained of The Rainbow was eventually removed. Then, at the initiative of the Department of Urban Planning and Housing, the present composition of five yellow diagonal, interconnecting rings was constructed.26 Furthermore, a statue of Major-General Tasos Markou (also by Nikolas Kotziamanis, creator of the Afxentiou statue discussed above) was erected at the side of the roundabout.27 Markou’s pose is a typical one in the southern landscape: in uniform, he stands very straight with a machine gun in his right hand while looking to the north-east of Nicosia, the region he disappeared from in mid-August 1974.28 This war hero’s presence in a traditional pose fully reclaims the roundabout for the hegemonic discourse.

Figure 1.13. Ihsan Ali’s gaze

. . . 47 . . .

Nico Carpentier

Figure 1.14. Scratches

Figure 1.15. Companion in life and death (not just now)

. . . 48 . . .

Iconoclastic Controversy in Cyprus

Figure 1.16. Atatürk in front of school

Figure 1.17. Vanished rainbow

. . . 49 . . .

Nico Carpentier

In Conclusion Statues and memorial sites cannot be considered separately from the political-ideological projects that allowed for their creation and provide the framework for their interpretation. The southern part of Cyprus shows how the history of the protracted conflict has been translated into statues and memorial sites. Most of these statues tell the tale of the Greek-Cypriot community and its heroism and sacrifice – a situation that Papadakis (2006) called ‘ethnic autism’. The representational strategy of the vast majority of these statues is underpinned by a social-realist logic that connects clarity to the support of a distinct hegemonic discourse. The choice of public art, along with the visibility attached to it, gives this discourse a material presence in the Cypriot streetscape: these statues are permanently and literally there to support, advocate and reinforce the hegemonic discourse. Yet these statues are not merely secondary to this discourse, for in their very materiality they add their own dimension by suggesting, provoking and privileging signification in their choice of specific events, periods and persons. Statues, as materializations of particular discourses, also invite – through their materiality – the invocation of these discourses. But a hegemony is never complete or stable (Mouffe 2005: 18), so these (hegemonic) discourses are not uncontested. My analysis has also attempted to demonstrate hegemonic processes’ vulnerability to disruption by alternative processes of signification. One such dislocation – to use one of Laclau’s (1990: 39) concepts – struck the Tymvos cemetery, where the discourse on the offender status of Turks and Turkish-Cypriots was supplemented with a discourse on Greek-Cypriot governments’ political abuse of the fallen and their families. At the same time, my account is also about how material interventions in the landscape can dislocate the Greek-Cypriot hegemonic discourse, so that the dominance of this discourse can never be complete or all-encompassing. This power to dislocate stems from the material presence of statues in towns or villages, something that is unlikely to be erased completely, regardless of attempts to desecrate or remove the statues. These sculptures also represent physical locations that not only render alternative discourses visible but reinforce them, in that they invite interpretation and signification of their very presence. In the specific instance of the landscape in the south of Cyprus, the presence of these alternative voices and counter-voices remains rare, confirming the difficulty of braving the complexity and ethical inconsistencies of this conflict. At the same time, however, their presence raises hopes for the future of this divided island. . . . 50 . . .

Iconoclastic Controversy in Cyprus

Acknowledgements I wish to express my thanks to Vaia Doudaki and Stella Theocharous for their much appreciated help with this research project. I also want to acknowledge Karin Nys for her help in navigating through the early history of Cyprus, Christophoros Christophorou and again Stella Theocharous for providing feedback on a draft version of this text, and Veerle De Pooter for translating an earlier version of the text into English. The editorial team of the Belgian cultural magazine nY (see Carpentier 2014), which published that earlier version, also earned my gratitude for their help and support. Of course, all mistakes that remain in this document are solely my responsibility. Finally, the support of the Research Council of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (via a sabbatical grant) and the Research Fund of Flanders (project code G016114N) must also be mentioned here.

NICO CARPENTIER is Professor of Media and Communication Studies in the Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University. In addition, he holds two part-time positions as Associate Professor in the Communication Studies Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB, Free University of Brussels) and Docent at Charles University in Prague. He is also a research fellow at the Cyprus University of Technology and Loughborough University. His latest book is The Discursive-Material Knot: Cyprus in Conflict and Community Media Participation.

Notes 1. 2.

3.

4. 5.

These three religious minorities are recognized in the constitution of the Republic of Cyprus. The logics of representation in the northern part of Cyprus are not structurally different from those in the south, but the differences in context affect the articulation of the hegemonic discourses in the north. See Karaiskou and Christiansen (2014: 143) for an illustration. Murchison gives an in-depth overview of the ethnographic method, but his emphasis on ‘the commitment to “being there” to conduct research’ (2010: 12) is particularly important here. http://publicart.ouc.ac.cy/. For this project, the following people were interviewed by Stella Theocharous: Stella Misiaoulis (Kostas Misiaoulis’ daughter, on 9 October 2014), Nikos Kouroussis (artist, on . . . 51 . . .

Nico Carpentier

6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

15 October 2014), Stavros Stavrou (Secretary of Pyla’s Municipal Council, on 16 October 2014), Thasos Sophocleous (a member of SIMAE [Συμβούλιο Ιστορικής Μνήμης Αγώνα ΕΟΚΑ 1955–1959, Council of Historical Memory of EOKA Struggle 1955-1959], on 17 October 2014) and an anonymous family member of a war casualty (on 25 October 2014). To make the text more accessible, Greek words are rendered in the Latin alphabet and Cypriot cities are referred to by their English names. This was based on United Nations Security Council Resolution 186, which was passed on 4 March 1964. British actions were also brutal. See e.g. Ian Cobain’s chapter on Cyprus in Cruel Britannia (2012), his book on U.K. torture practices. http://www.pelendri.org/english/propilaia.shtm. http://www.pelendri.org/english/propilaia.shtm. http://www.kotziamanis.com/sculpture/. http://publicart.ouc.ac.cy/?p=1480. http://publicart.ouc.ac.cy/?p=3231. Interview with Thasos Sophocleous. See also https://tinyurl.com/y823zezx for the rulings of the High Court. http://www.cmp-cyprus.org/. This does not necessarily mean that Turkish-Cypriots should be seen as conquerors, but that is a matter for another analysis. http://publicart.ouc.ac.cy/?p=3186. http://publicart.ouc.ac.cy/?p=1777. http://www.moi.gov.cy/moi/pio/pio.nsf/All/6C7FA32B1A85DAAFC22575A5005F3FB1?OpenDocument&print (in Greek). http://alfanews.com.cy/digital/arxeiopdf/2014-07-27.pdf; http://archive.philenews.com/ el-gr/top-stories/885/287112/apozimioseis-gia-ton-iroa-tou-1974-chpalma-deite-tin-apo fasi (in Greek). http://publicart.ouc.ac.cy/?p=2083. Interview with Stella Misiaoulis. Interview with Stavros Stavrou. http://www.kouroussis.com/. http://fresques.ina.fr/europe-des-cultures-en/impression/fiche-media/Europe00501/ nikos-kouroussis.html. Interview with Nikos Kouroussis. http://www.kotziamanis.com/. http://www.missing-cy.org.cy/ItemsForm.asp?ID=1419; http://www.kypros.org/UN/Ta sosMarkou25.9.04.htm.

References Anastasiou, H. 2008. The Broken Olive Branch: Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict, and the Quest for Peace in Cyprus, Vol. 1, The Impasse of Ethnonationalism. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press. Carpentier, N. 2014. ‘Beeldenstrijd in Cyprus. Het Problematische Herdenken van een Conflictueus Verleden’, nY 24: 129–68. _______. (ed.). 2015. Culture, Trauma and Conflict: Cultural Studies Perspectives on Contemporary War, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars Publishers. Carpentier, N., and B. De Cleen. 2007. ‘Bringing Discourse Theory into Media Studies’, Journal of Language and Politics 6(2): 267–95. Chatzipanagiotidou, E. 2012. ‘The “Leftovers” of History: Reconsidering the “Unofficial” History of the Left in Cyprus and the Cypriot Diaspora’, in R. Bryant and Y. Papadakis (eds),

. . . 52 . . .

Iconoclastic Controversy in Cyprus Cyprus and the Politics of Memory: History, Community and Conflict. London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 94–117. Cobain, I. 2012. Cruel Britannia: A Secret History of Torture. London: Portobello Books. Cockburn, P. 1997. ‘The Ghost of Grivas Divides Cyprus Again’, Independent, 9 February. Retrieved 5 May 2015 from http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/the-ghost-of-gri vas-divides-cyprus-again-1277733.html. Cockburn, C. 2004. The Line: Women, Partition and the Gender Order in Cyprus. London: Zed Books. Copeaux, É. 2008. ‘Politique et Toponymie au Nord de Chypre’, in G. de Rapper and P. Sintès, with K. Kaurinkauski (eds), Nommer et Classer dans les Balkans. Athens: École française d’Athènes, pp. 257–68. Crouzet, F. 1973. Le conflit de Chypre 1946–1959. Brussels: Établissements Émile Bruylant. Demetriou, C. 2007. ‘Political Violence and Legitimation: The Episode of Colonial Cyprus’, Qualitative Sociology 30: 171–93. Doulami, M.-C. 2008. ‘Officials Seek to Play Down Pyla Incidents’, Cyprus Mail, 22 August. Retrieved 5 May 2015 from http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-183454859.html. Drousiotis, M. 2012. ‘The State Created an Industry of Missing Persons’ [Το κράτος ίδρυσε βιομηχανία αγνοουμένων]. Retrieved 5 May 2015 from http://www.makarios.eu/cgibin/ hweb?-A=6204,printer.html&-V=makarios. European Court of Human Rights. 2009. ‘Application no. 23082/07 by Maria Tzilivaki and Others against Cyprus Lodged on 23 May 2007’. Retrieved 5 May 2015 from http:// hudoc.echr.coe.int/sites/eng/pages/search.aspx?i=001-113076. Evripidou, S. 2008. ‘Plans to Dig Up Greek Plane Shot Down in 1974’, Cyprus Mail, 21 May. Retrieved 16 August 2015 from http://www.cypriot.org.uk/Documents/Haber8/19Mayis.htm. Faustmann, H. 2006. ‘Independence Postponed: Cyprus 1959–1960’, in H. Faustmann and N. Peristianis (eds), Britain in Cyprus: Colonialism and Post-colonialism 1878–2006. Mannheim and Möhnsee: Bibliopolis, pp. 413–29. ———. 2008. ‘The Colonial Legacy of Division’, in J. Ker-Lindsay and H. Faustmann (eds), The Government and Politics of Cyprus. New York: Peter Lang, pp. 45–62. Galatariotou, C. 2012. ‘Truth, Memory and the Cypriot Journey Towards a New Past’, in R. Bryant and Y. Papadakis (eds), Cyprus and the Politics of Memory: History, Community and Conflict. London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 242–63. Gürel, A., M. Hatay and C. Yakinthou. 2012. Displacement in Cyprus: Consequences of Civil and Military Strife; An Overview of Events and Perceptions. Nicosia: PRIO Cyprus Centre. Holland, R. 1998. Britain and the Revolt in Cyprus, 1954–1959. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Ioannou, A. 2008. ‘Turkish Cypriots Slam Pyla Vandalism’, Famagusta Gazette, 21 August. Retrieved 3 May 2015 from http://famagusta-gazette.com/turkish-cypriots-slam-pyla-van dalism-p4805-69.htm. Jennings, R.C. 1993. Christians and Muslims in Ottoman Cyprus and the Mediterranean World, 1571–1640. New York: New York University Press. Karageorghis, V. 1982. Cyprus: From the Stone Age to the Romans. London: Thames & Hudson. Karaiskou, V. 2013. ‘Particularities of Commemoration in the Republic of Cyprus’. Retrieved 20 August 2015 from http://publicart.ouc.ac.cy/?p=4975. Karaiskou, V., and A. Christiansen. 2014. ‘Aphrodite’s Heirs: Beauty and Women’s Suffering in Cypriot Public Sculpture’, in M. Ioannou and M. Kyriakidou (eds), Female Beauty in Art: History, Feminism, Women Artists. Newcastle-upon-Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, pp. 126–79. Knapp, A.B. 2013. The Archaeology of Cyprus: From the Earliest Prehistory through the Bronze Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Laclau, E. (ed.). 1990. New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time. London: Verso. Laclau, E., and C. Mouffe. 1985. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso.

. . . 53 . . .

Nico Carpentier Loizidou, C. 2010. ‘On the Liberty Monument of Nicosia’, in P. Loizos, N. Philippou and T. Stylianou-Lambert (eds), Re-envisioning Cyprus. Nicosia: University of Nicosia, pp. 89–101. Mallinson, W. 2005. Cyprus: A Modern History. London: I.B. Tauris. Markides, D. 2006. ‘Cyprus 1878–1925: Ambiguities and Uncertainties’, in H. Faustman and N. Peristianis (eds), Britain in Cyprus: Colonialism and Post-colonialism 1878–2006. Mannheim and Möhnsee: Bibliopolis, pp. 19–33. Michael, M.S. 2011. Resolving the Cyprus Conflict. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Mirbagheri, F. 2010. Historical Dictionary of Cyprus. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press. Mouffe, C. 2005. On the Political. London: Routledge. Murchison, J.M. 2010. Ethnography Essentials. Designing, Conducting, and Presenting Your Research. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Panayiotou, A. 2012. ‘Hegemony, Permissible Public Discourse and Lower Class Political Culture’, in R. Bryant and Y. Papadakis (eds), Cyprus and the Politics of Memory: History, Community and Conflict. London: I.B. Tauris, pp. 71–93. Papadakis, Y. 1997. ‘Pyla: A Mixed Borderline Village under UN Supervision in Cyprus’, International Journal on Minority and Human Rights 4: 353–72. ———. 2006. ‘Toward an Anthropology of Ethnic Autism’, in Y. Papadakis, N. Peristianis and G. Welz (eds), Divided Cyprus: Modernity, History, and an Island in Conflict. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 66–83. Papadopoulos, M. 2007. ‘The History of a Sculpture’, in N. Kouroussis (ed.), The Rainbow (in Greek). Nicosia: Nikos Kouroussis, p. 35. Patrick, R.A. 1976. Political Geography and the Cyprus Conflict, 1963–1971. Waterloo: Department of Geography, Faculty of Environmental Studies, University of Waterloo. Psillides, C. 2014. ‘Three Remanded Suspects Could Be ‘Bust Thieves’’, Cyprus Mail, 28 May. Retrieved 5 June 2015 from http://cyprus-mail.com/2014/05/28/three-remandedsuspects-could-be-bust-thieves/. Sant Cassia, P. 2005. Bodies of Evidence: Burial, Memory and the Recovery of Missing Persons in Cyprus. New York: Berghahn Books. Sinclair, T. 2006. ‘Ihsan Ali: A Historian’s View’, in Ihsan Ali Foundation (ed.), Dr. Ihsan Ali’s Life and Deeds. Nicosia: Ihsan Ali Foundation, pp. 14–18. Steiner, L., and A.E. Killebrew (eds). 2014. The Archaeology of the Levant: c. 8000–332 BCE. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sztompka, P. 2000. ‘Cultural Trauma: The Other Face of Social Change’, European Journal of Social Theory 3: 449–66. Talmon, S. 2001. ‘The Cyprus Question before the European Court of Justice’, European Journal of International Law 4: 727–50. Tesser, L. 2013. Ethnic Cleansing and the European Union: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Security, Memory and Ethnography. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. ‘Vandals Tarnish Image of Mixed Cyprus Village’. 1998. BBC, 10 April. Retrieved 3 May 2015 from http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/76722.stm. Yakinthou, C. 2008. ‘The Quiet Deflation of Den Xehno? Changes in the Greek Cypriot Communal Narrative on the Missing Persons in Cyprus’, The Cyprus Review 20(1): 15–33.

. . . 54 . . .

S

Chapter 2

OUNDMARKS OF CONFLICT IN

THE CITY CENTRE OF DIVIDED NICOSIA

Yiannis Christidis and Angeliki Gazi

Introduction The presence of sound requires atmosphere and action. Human activities trigger sound waves of varying intensity that declare their existence, communicate meanings and often define the identity of the place. Together, they create an urban geography of sounds. Such mosaics of sounds enhance the sound character of a place (Wissman 2014). From quiet or loud sounds of minor importance to sounds of vast significance for the people who create and are exposed to them, sound-based information declares its presence, compiling the identity of the place. When sounds are culturally or religiously meaningful and represent community values and structures, the identity of the place acquires similar characteristics and sometimes the praise of individuals within the community that lives there. From this starting point, what seems most interesting is how these dynamics are formed in areas of conflict, where opposing groups habituate certain places. In such cases, these sounds can be gunfire, explosions or sirens in actual war situations. In more peaceful contexts and in everyday life, an existing conflict can become present through more common sounds that can characterize the identity of each of the conflicting sides – for example, the everyday sounds of a variety of languages coexisting in a defined geographical place. Also, the resonance of ‘mild’ religious soundmarks, like church bells and the hodja’s calls to prayer, can distinguish different religions. No matter how ‘peaceful’ they might sound, they refer to ‘opposite’ communities – Christian and Muslim, in this example – whose coexistence

Yiannis Christidis and Angeliki Gazi

in a place can refer to conflict. In all these cases, conflict can be regarded as sonically signified by such indicators, and the aural experience of the human listeners potentially involves more than a ‘causal mode of listening’ (Chion 1994: 25). Meanwhile, their reaction to such sonic presences might vary. This differentiation is worth investigating. How do people who inhabit areas of conflict relate to place when they are exposed to such sounds on a regular basis? More specifically, how do such sounds function in the wider context of an ongoing conflict? Every place resonates, but when a place is intensively marked by events or conflict situations, its distinctive resonance often involves sounds pointing towards them. In this chapter we trace and investigate the often conflict-related sounds in the divided city centre of Nicosia, examining how they create the meaning of place and thereby affect the inhabitants’ sense of attachment to place. The urban context crossed by the Green Line is uniquely characterized by its divided space, which is marked by intense elements of conflict represented through the soundmarks of its soundscape. We analyse how the listener connects with the soundscape and the correlated soundmarks of conflict with reference to place attachment theory (Low and Altman 1991; Tuan 1977). Overall, the chapter focuses on exploring the ways individuals connect with a particular space. It is based on twenty-six semi-structured in-depth interviews stratified by ethnicity and locality. Additional data on the sounds related to conflict were gathered by soundwalking (Makagon and Neumann 2009).

Listening Experiences and Soundscape Theory The field of acoustic communication studies the person as a listener, the environment and its sounds of that environment. This triad constitutes a listening experience taking place in an acoustic space, but it also points to a deeper circle of information exchange through sound, which involves various processes of perception (Truax 1995). Soundscape theory (Schafer 1977) provides a ground for studying the acoustic environment in detail while examining the nature of the sound information with its social characteristics. The listening process, apart from being neurophysical or involving a cognitive level of perception of sound and its meanings, incorporates the relation between the human as listener, the environment, and society. In time these relations, which themselves are studied by acoustic communication, are being evolved and transformed, intertwining theoretical and practical concepts with other fields of study, as the nature of the sounding cultures . . . 56 . . .

Soundmarks of Conflict in Divided Nicosia

itself is in constant change. A representative example is the alteration of the role of industrial sounds, which now are ‘so dominant they become sonic background rather than isolated foreground sonic events’ (Blesser and Salter 2007: 105). Feld (1996: 97), focusing on the acoustic experience of place, has proposed ‘acoustemology’, a term concerning the way that place is constructed by sound sensations, experiences and memories, as ‘an exploration of sonic sensibilities, specifically of ways in which sound is central to making sense, to knowing, to experiential truth’. The importance of sound experience and memories in the study of place, is heightened: ‘Where the model of acoustic communication includes the communal and personal relationships to soundscape, Feld recently added another layer, and stressed that experience and memories are related to sounds and places’ (Kytö, Remy and Uimonen 2012: 30). Building on the established model of acoustic communication, this evolving sense-oriented approach to sound and its properties takes into account that a soundscape involves everything ‘we’ hear (Schafer 1977). A useful contribution to understanding the mode of listening would therefore focus on the exact definition of ‘we’, and a detailed reference to the individual and his/her experience, rather than the sounds themselves. As sound moves freely into space, it creates its own acoustic boundaries. These can transgress boundaries made by humans, especially when indoor spaces are not involved. This is why acoustic space, a term first introduced with reference to the media (McLuhan 1967), now concerns the ‘real’ world’s acoustic environment and offers the ground for the study of sonic experience, taking the research of soundscapes a step further to identify the acoustic community (Truax 1984: 57–83) as a united group of people exposed to the same sounds, regardless of their origin or belonging to other communities. As such, exposure to soundscapes potentially reproduces identity boundaries that differ from those of the ethnic or other identity groups – boundaries that can be the result of a conflict. In parallel, sounds of significance that the ear might catch during one’s first visit to a place, or sounds that define a specific geographical area, are the ones that reveal the identity of a place. Such sounds can link the place to listeners’ formation of a special kind of community, organized around them. Some sounds are privileged as soundmarks, sounds considered worth preserving because they appear rich in cultural or ‘community’ value. They can take on the character of distinctive community sounds, or of qualities by which those sounds are sorted, and are both ‘specially regarded or noticed by the people in that community’ (Schafer 1977: 274) and thought to be rich in ‘cultural and historical significance and merit preservation and protection’ (Truax 1999). . . . 57 . . .

Yiannis Christidis and Angeliki Gazi

It is perhaps understandable that in sites of conflict populated by different cultural communities, distinctive but congruent community sounds are likely to fit the above definition of soundmarks given by Truax. But whether belonging to, no matter how many and which communities habituate itit is likely that templesn the way the research is designedions. d be poi ethnic, religious, or cultural communities, individuals in conflict zones might define a soundmark differently, since they define themselves as belonging to opposing groups. In such cases, the exact parameters that define their soundscape can be analysed in order to explore whether these groups consist of one unified or more differentiated acoustic communities. Either way, the contemporary sound environment in the Western world is a globalized soundscape with common attributes: everyday sounds in certain places are very likely to appear familiar to the listeners from other places. This can support the notion that soundmarks are indeed characteristic of the place, no matter how many and which communities habituate it. Today’s behaviours, ever-changing cultural and commercial activities, and human habits undoubtedly change the nature of the soundscape. Indeed, historical soundmarks can be researched so as to uncover new correlations with the contemporary everyday life, especially when issues of conflict are involved. In an area of conflict, the sound experience is particularly worthy of investigation, insofar as it concerns the convoluted way(s) people perceive such soundmarks and the way(s) they connect to place through them. In other words, the human listener’s subjectivity with regard to the importance of a sound appears to matter for characterizing an acoustic community.

Place Attachment in an Acoustic Conflict Environment Members of an acoustic community spend a considerable amount of time in an area where the sounds under discussion resonate. Consequently, these members might develop an attachment to the specific place, which involves individuals’ emotional and/or affective bonds to a place as they develop over a long period of settlement (Smaldone 2006). ‘The polarity between ethnic homogeneity and heterogeneity in the area of an ethnic group’s settlement’ is a major ethno-demographic variable (Chríost 2003: 48). Also, place attachment can vary in an area of conflict where more than one ethnic community lives. This study draws on Stokowski’s (2002) description of places as not only geographical areas, but also dynamic contexts of social

. . . 58 . . .

Soundmarks of Conflict in Divided Nicosia

interaction and memory. Stokowski offers a fruitful approach to investigating the dynamics of place and the role of an individual’s attachment to it, but this perspective inevitably places social structures in a subordinate analytical role. Here, the dynamics of the bonds developed within such structures are those of most interest. Scannel and Gifford (2010: 5) regard place attachment as ‘a bond between an individual or group and a place that can vary in terms of spatial level, degree of specificity, and social or physical features of the place, and is manifested through affective, cognitive, and behavioral psychological processes’. Thus, it appears that place attachment theory can descriptively discuss the interrelations between an individual and a particular space. This is highly relevant in the study of in-conflict environments, since a place, a relationship or a sound can potentially represent ideas and actions related to the conflict itself or to actions that happened in the past. In such a process, one should wonder how human activity gives acoustic space the characteristics of a place. The acoustic space can include elements that help an individual to attach to place: sensations, emotions and a sense of membership or being-in-place can contribute to the construction of place attachment. The way acoustic space is connected to sound includes the ‘sound picture’ of a place (Velasco 2000: 23). The manner in which such elements relate to the concept of the soundmark, or whichever sound is considered important by inhabitants of a place, is the focus of our study. Before defining and describing place attachment on this basis, it must be acknowledged that it is grounded in the development of sociocultural or plain spatial bonds between individuals. It also depends on humans’ sensory experience, which is lived within the ambiance. Thus, sense-related elements or signs in this context can provoke or disempower (Hidalgo and Hernandez 2001). The connection with space through place attachment therefore has potential to lead to the creation of communities of various structures, where an acoustic community redefines its boundaries. It is the boundaries’ territorial density, along with the ‘thickness’ of their edges, that affects the aural experience. A unique kind of aural fluidity can evolve with respect to the existence of soundmarks and the resonance of different community languages that can travel across borders both literally and metaphorically. Regarding the community itself, each territory is personally formed by individuals: [P]ersons who feel that they belong to the same ethnic community may occupy a very imprecisely defined territory, and … even if the territory in which they predominate may be precisely defined, this does not necessarily coin-

. . . 59 . . .

Yiannis Christidis and Angeliki Gazi

cide with the territory of a state. Almost every state includes non-members of the ethnic community with which it is associated, but it also fails to include some members of this community (Coakley 2005b: 2).

When it comes to the personal soundscapes of the inhabitants, the fluidity of such inclusions becomes even greater, as sound is able to travel free of restraint by human or state territories. Place attachment evolves through the development of physical and social bonds between members of a community. Likewise, through sound, relation to place can create acoustic communities, under particular circumstances. Such insights pose numerous challenges for a study of the in-place sound in relation to place attachment. Also, the way individuals attach to place is related to the everyday soundscape. In order to explore how the aforementioned theoretical terms intertwine with the soundscape of Nicosia’s divided city centre, an area where the conflict between Turkish-Cypriots and Greek-Cypriots has been present for more than fifty years, it is necessary to establish how acoustic space and place attachment are connected. The divided area is also the ground of a long-standing conflict between the two communities. Even though Christianity is considered ‘contrary’ to the Muslim religion (Mazumdar and Mazumdar 2004), it is possible that the sounds of each religion retain a character other than this. But what is the individual-based connection between the unique sound, its elements and the place? And most importantly, what is the relationship between conflict and the sounds that overcome conflict through everyday life? These are the issues this chapter aims to explore.

Methodology The research methodology combines two main methodological tools: the ethnographic soundwalk (Westerkamp 1988; Drever 2009) and qualitative interviewing (Babbie 2010). Soundwalking within a territory of conflict can incorporate a multi-modal observation of the environment to calculate cues from the visual and sonic properties that contribute to the holistic ambience of the city soundscape. Attentive listening while observing offers a directional consideration of the sonic environment, but within this field of soundscape evaluation, the soundwalker’s total experience also contributes to a better understanding of the place and its properties. Soundwalking provides a base for the second stage of the research, where the soundmarks dominating the environment are traced through interviews.

. . . 60 . . .

Soundmarks of Conflict in Divided Nicosia

The soundwalk is considered a stable experiential methodological tool that allows the researcher to hear, attend, listen and finally comprehend the sonic elements of his/her aural environment – ‘a way to study the world from the vantage point of careful listening’ (Makagon and Neumann 2009: 33). Drefer (2009: 164) affirms a connection between soundwalking and the understanding of everyday rhythms of a place, arguing that ‘[t]he salient concern in soundwalking is everyday life. Bringing into play the everyday suggests a shared tacit knowledge, whilst validating individual’s behaviour, perception and interpretation’. Such modalities, although established half a century ago, still offer a base from which to investigate sound through personal experience (Schaeffer 1966), often aided by the creation of qualitative sound maps. It appears that the modality of ‘comprehension’ of everyday sounds is what can potentially connect sound and place within the field of acoustic communication. In this sense, soundwalking is a tool for establishing patterns of ‘interaction between environment and individual, and between environment and community’ (Westerkamp 1988: 3). The sounds of the city of Nicosia were tracked and logged by implementing ethnographic soundwalking ten times on five consecutive days (8–12 July 2013), each time actualizing the same walking route (Figure 2.1). The soundwalk can be practised as many times as the researcher might want, so the specific routine we followed was judged to be depictive of the everyday sound in the place, and meant to include as many sounds as possible. From the soundwalks there evolved a descriptive analysis of the area, which facilitated the conduct of interviews during the second stage of data-gathering. Qualitative in-depth interviews (Babbie 2010: 318–22) were carried out with twenty-six1 male and female middle-aged, mainly Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot inhabitants and workers from both parts of the city.2 Participants were selected using the snowball method,3 a feasible procedure given the short geographical distance between houses, workshops and bars (the area of study covers about two km2). Interview data was subject to a qualitative content analysis (Schreier 2013), as it was transcribed and categorized in order to obtain the useful parts related to the sounds of conflict. Each participant is presented here by a unique two-digit number followed by the initials of his or her community or nationality (GC for Greek-Cypriot, TC for Turkish-Cypriot, T for Turkish, EG for Egyptian). For instance, the tenth individual interviewed, a Greek-Cypriot, is identified as ‘10GC’.

. . . 61 . . .

Figure 2.1. The soundwalk path. © openstreetmap.org contributors, licenced under CC BY-SA.

Yiannis Christidis and Angeliki Gazi

. . . 62 . . .

Soundmarks of Conflict in Divided Nicosia

Acoustic Geography of the City Centre of Divided Nicosia In Nicosia, political and cultural varieties coexist in a zone of long-existing conflict, separated by a buffer zone between the north and the south that has remained uninhabited since the island’s division in 1974. Following the division, Turkish-Cypriots living in the south had to move to the north, and Greek-Cypriots were forced into the south. In other words, members of both communities were obliged to leave their properties and move to the ‘right’ side of the island. One of the consequences of the war has been the formation of ‘an almost impenetrable frontier between the Turkish Cypriot northern third of the country and the Greek Cypriot south’ (Bose 2007: 56). This ‘exchange’ ramped up the conflict even more. Even now the conflict is felt – especially in the precise area of interest here, which is the old, walled city centre where the ‘Dead Zone’ along the Green Line of separation has divided the city. The area of study is the oldest part of Nicosia and is also rich in cultural and social heritage. Oktay (2007: 236) describes the so-called Dead Zone as referring to the old neighbourhoods: ‘The Buffer Zone, which cuts across the Walled City in an east-west direction, covering an area of some 18–20 hectares … is approximately 1.5km in length and passes through several old neighbourhoods such as Paphos Gate (Porta Domenica), Arabahmed, Karamanzade, Ayios Andreas, Phaneromeni, Selimiye (Ayia Sophia), Arasta (Lokmaci Point), Omeriye, Chrysaliniotissa and Ayios Kassianos.’ To this day the buffer zone is controlled and patrolled by the United Nations. Outlining the model of ethnic separation in Cyprus, the re-settlement of Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots in the south and the north respectively after the island’s partition in 1974 resulted in a stable ‘spatial polarization’, and by 2002, the presence – in terms of population – of the ‘other’ community was from 0.1 to 0.2 per cent (Coakley 2005a: 288). Thereafter, the ‘period was marked by numerous initiatives to find a political solution to the conflict acceptable to both communities, as well as efforts for economic recovery’ (Sepos 2008: 28). Although both communities now exist in a relative state of peace, the island remains divided. Moreover, territorial demands remain, as do challenges related to ethnicity and culture; these are represented mainly in the sociopolitical environment (Solomonides 2008).

The Divided Capital’s Soundscape A first-time listener in the downtown Nicosia area of interest is exposed to a variety of sonic elements. Chatter, the hum of machines, traffic, fountains, . . . 63 . . .

Yiannis Christidis and Angeliki Gazi

street vendors’ calls and the hodja’s religious call to prayer are only some of the resonances that seem to stand out in the lively soundscape of everyday urban life. The human sounds attest to a vivid everyday activity in the city centre. Still, even a visitor’s ear can mask the mechanical/noisy sound of contemporary city life to focus on other (sound) qualities of everyday life. This can be observed in the soundscape of areas such as the neighbourhood of Paphos Gate. Lacarrière (2003: 75–76) describes how, from a particular spot on the way out of the buffer zone, one can see the whole TurkishCypriot side of the city and the two minarets of the old, once Orthodox, church of Aghia Sofia, while also very clearly noticing the noises, hum, echo and whispers of Greek-Cypriot Nicosia. These sounds – being sounds that declare the presence of life – speak, whisper or shout to announce one’s exit from the ‘land of shadows’, that is, the anechoic land of the buffer zone. The Dead Zone is a significantly empty space where the sound of the city is ‘blurry’, and silence makes its appearance as a reminder of the painful conflict, next to the diffused resonance of more obtrusive everyday sounds originating from the northern and southern parts of the city. An unexpected feeling accompanies entry into the Dead Zone, at least while crossing it through the control path of the UN: the dominance of the silence in the UN-controlled area completely masks the current soundscape. While exposed to this weird silence, one can both hear and feel the approach to a busy soundscape, from the outside of it. The ‘noisy’ silence in the inbetween area is what makes this transition so distinctive. In an attempt to demonstrate the acoustic geography of the city centre, sounds are categorized as human, mechanical and natural. As listeners discovering the sound elements during the experience of entering the Dead Zone, or even during less transitional movements in the wider area under study, our task was to locate the ‘sounds of significance’ that delineate the soundscapes for the region’s inhabitants, and to pay special attention to the religious soundmarks that are created in the area.

Sounds of Significance The street vendor calls that dominate the sound of the city centre are of particular significance to the characterization of this acoustic community. Vendor voices are intensively present and appear to influence the soundscape of the community exposed to them. The way in which these sounds function within this context, however, depends on the shapes of buildings, the variable widths of streets and alleys, or even the relative height at which a listener is situated. These parameters endow such sounds with certain properties. Street vendors’ sounds circulate in many neighbourhoods of the . . . 64 . . .

Soundmarks of Conflict in Divided Nicosia

area, and as the vendors themselves often cross the roadblocks to sell their goods on the ‘other side’ of the divided city, they create a ‘moving soundmark’ in an area of conflict. The sounds of children playing in the public space are present, especially on Sundays and holidays. The more discreet but ever present sounds of tourists and other, frequent visitors to this particular part of the city on both sides are audible, and so are the various languages. Such human sounds could complicate the meaning of a distinctive community soundmark, as they too lend consistency and economic relevance to the everyday life of the inhabitants. Craft shops, garages, parking lots and other wood or metal works also resonate in the place. The sounds of their machines most often slip out of enclosed spaces during the spring and summer months, when doors are open. Such mechanical and technological elements enhance the soundscape of the area during ‘working hours’, complemented by electronic sounds with musical properties, like small radios resonating from shops. This category of mechanical sounds also encompasses mobile ringtones and the noises of traffic, which vary according to the time and day. Natural sounds, like the chirping of birds and the rustling of leaves in the wind, are also present in certain spots in the area under study; meanwhile, cats and dogs often make their presence known in the area by filling listeners’ ears with noises of rurality. All these sounds contribute to an imaginary soundmap of the area that describes its soundscape in some detail. Of special importance in the area’s soundscape are the religion-related sounds, which create special soundmarks.

Religious Soundmarks The two main religious soundmarks that are characteristic of the area are representative parts of the two communities in conflict. Religious communities are symbolically articulated by the sound of the Islamic call to prayer and the sound of Christian church bells, so that the sound of the ‘sacred’ establishes each community’s presence in the acoustic space. These sounds’ resonance is often amplified by loudspeakers placed outside mosques and churches. Such installations cause unique effects as technology intervenes in the soundscape of the area, making the human voice or the sound of the bell louder. As Lee (2006: 199) has pointed out, in such cases the loudspeaker has ‘become essential in the traditional call to prayer, a remarkable juxtaposition of high media technology and conservative religious practice’. The signifying sound of the church bell is distinctive, similarly recognizable to people, and unchanged through time, although in the contemporary . . . 65 . . .

Yiannis Christidis and Angeliki Gazi

Figure 2.2. Wall-mount speakers amplify the sound of the liturgy taking place inside the church.

era the material clash of metals has often been replaced by electronic bells that are, like traditional bells, amplified by the loudspeakers installed in many churches in the city centre of Nicosia. The same loudspeakers also serve to transmit the liturgy being read in the church to the outer space. Church bells sound in the city to announce celebrations like weddings and feast days as well as other church-related ceremonies and rituals taking place within the Christian community. The bells’ resonance thus attempts to connect the ‘real’ world with the sacred in time and space by creating a distinctive aural experience that gathers identity features around it. Community and individual identity construction is supported by the ringing of bells (Corbin 1998). The metallic and melodic resonance has the power to signify events that connect Christians, bonding a community through the signifying practices of the sacred. The other religious sound of significance which resonates in the divided city centre is the hodja’s call to prayer. The Islamic call to prayer, otherwise known as the adhan (or azan), is recited five times a day from every mosque to inform Muslims of the prayer times, namely Subuh (before dawn), Zuhur (noon), Asar (late afternoon), Maghrib (after sunset), and Isyak (evening)... As a social phenomenon, the adhan unifies and regulates the Islamic community by marking the times for prayer and creating a sacred context that obligates a specific religious response. (Lee 2006: 199)

. . . 66 . . .

Soundmarks of Conflict in Divided Nicosia

The Imam’s call to prayer is heard across the Muslim community, forming a rejoinder to the sacred soundmark of the Christian bells. A contested acoustic space is reproduced with historical resonance: ‘[A] temporality that has been heard regularly, five times a day, for fifteen centuries, throughout most of the world, from a human voice from the top of minarets. To Muslims this is more powerful than mechanical and digital clocks and more meaningful than other calendars’ (Guindi 2008: 86). Mechanical and technological elements are integral, as the original azan takes place in an area close to Nicosia, and is then transmitted to the mosques of the city via radio waves and played back through loudspeakers. Thus, although the ‘traditional’ character is maintained, in this case too, technologized sounds have entered the sacred soundscape. As Lee (2006: 200) notes: ‘Once exclusive to Islamic rural communities, the sacred acoustic environment of the amplified call to prayer was … “inhabited” by non-Muslims.’ Christians, in this case, are also exposed to the specific sound, part of the soundscape of the area. Such particular acoustic environments characterized by the mutual existence of these soundmarks Figure 2.3. Speakers facilitate the audibility of the hodja’s call to prayer throughout the city centre

. . . 67 . . .

Yiannis Christidis and Angeliki Gazi

have also been observed elsewhere: ‘It is reported that the sounds of the call to prayer and church bells mingled amiably for centuries in Bosnia, with its mixed Muslim and Christian population’ (Kiser and Lubman 2008: 3807). However, the Nicosia case is unique because the sound of the soundmarks crosses borders4 set by humans. As such, both soundmarks might theoretically bring together the whole community living in the area, whose members are related on the basis of these sound characteristics. That is, they would, in theory, function as a factor bringing religious communities closer. But does this happen in real life? People attach to places, developing bonds to certain cultural elements. In the case described here, sound occurrences may develop dynamic interrelations with other, symbolic events, such as the resonance of religious soundmarks. Mazumdar and Mazumdar (2004: 394) have commented in this regard that ‘people develop attachment to sacred cities and sacred structures, in addition to natural places’. On the specific sound, Said (2010: 7) remarks: ‘In this prevailing calm, the call for prayer changes the sonic stillness of the residential areas giving it a specific rhythm. Being described as “melody” launched in the soundscape, this term indicates the quality of the chosen person to launch the call turning it into an agreeable experience…’ The sounds of significance and religious soundmarks in the cases explored here are part of the community’s everyday life. The above-mentioned empirical data, collected through ethnography, form the basis for further investigation of the soundmarks of conflict: How do they influence individuals’ attachment to place?

Experiencing the Soundscape Divided Nicosia’s urban soundscape includes a rich variety of natural, artificial (mechanical) and human sounds, which dominate the environment, both north and south. The analysis of how the soundscape is experienced by its inhabitants, which relies on both the interviews and the soundwalk material, is organized on three levels, the first concerning everyday life, and the other two connecting directly to the conflict – how sounds enforce it, and how they overcome it.

Sound as Part of Everyday Life Descriptions of the everyday soundscape portray a lively neighbourhood characterized by similar qualities, regardless of the division and the silent buffer zone. A contemporary Western soundscape is present; it has both ur. . . 68 . . .

Soundmarks of Conflict in Divided Nicosia

ban and rural characteristics and shows no clues of conflict. The variety of the languages one can hear in the streets reveals the multiculturalism in the area. The poetic aspect of the old city centre of divided Nicosia merits emphasis, as it gathers elements of the past and the present, various languages and the aforementioned harmonically coexistent religious sounds, which cut through and along the city walls. Religious soundmarks are not always the first thing mentioned or discussed, nor do they figure prominently in conflict-oriented discussions. As one Greek-Cypriot reported, the overall sound of the area acquires a sense of calmness characterized by children’s voices: ‘Young kids, they bring kids here, they play, as there is a lot of space, where can they go elsewhere? This is a good place here. It is calm, the kids are safe, as they are going to run and play here, like this’ (04GC). Regarding languages, besides Turkish and Greek, one can make out others coming from many parts of the world; accordingly, the listener can catch European, American and Asian vocal resonances as small groups of people from these areas pass by. When soundwalking in the area, one feels at a crossroads, not just between East and West, but between history and the future. Sounds of modern technologies and transportation – automobiles – are discreet and intermingle with older machine sounds, such as the machines of the shoemaker or even the sounds made by street vendors’ manual trolleys. During the warmer seasons, one is likely to hear the constant hum coming from an air-conditioning ventilation machine on a streetcorner, while the resonance of a noisy old fan can reach beyond a tavern door. The relative scarcity of cars in the uncongested old city centre allows such differences to be audible. On another level, it is the contextual resonance of place that grabs the walking listener’s attention and triggers the sense of being in a place with a distinct identity. It is also the mixture of all the aforementioned sound experiences, which create for the first-time visitor the feeling of a peaceful, harmonic everyday rhythm of life, enriched, however, with elements of brewing conflict.

Sound as (Part of the) Conflict Soundwalking stresses how the empty space on the other side of the wall, resonating as it does with a special kind of silence, is a reminder of the ongoing conflict. At the same time, the physical boundaries are dominated by a natural emptiness along the wall: only small animals live in the abandoned, road-blocked areas. At the crossing point, tourists’ mumbling, the louder voices of the border control officers and the distinct sound of visas being stamped5 merge to remind the soundwalker of the unresolved terri. . . 69 . . .

Yiannis Christidis and Angeliki Gazi

torial conflict. Border-related activity does not refer solely to people’s (non) ability to move freely. By declaring his annoyance at a peculiar activity, interviewee 09GC, who works right next to the roadblocks, stressed an aspect of another present sound of conflict, apart from the religious soundmarks: ‘There have been moments, when … during the night, in the past, when the Turks were here, closely, they were throwing stones every night. Every night.’ Similarly, 17TC narrated a story about stones being thrown from the south part of the city over the roadblocks. Sound events like these highlight the relevance of researching sounds of conflict in the area across the border, as they may form a specific conflict-related element. At their contemporary ordinary daytime level, the religious soundmarks are noticeable. They intermingle with everyday sounds associated with the respective in-conflict communities. A Turk (14T) described the soundscape of the area like this: ‘When a foreign person comes here, the sounds that he/she may hear are the noises that come from the workplaces … sounds that the shopkeepers/artisans make. Plus the noises that the church or the mosque makes…’. The borders divide the areas where churches on the one side, and mosques on the other, are located and resonate. Qualitative content analysis of the interviews uncovered the presence of actions and thoughts related to the borders and, in another sense, linked to the political conflict, in discussion of the aforementioned ‘noises’. For example, a Greek-Cypriot (01GC) regarded the border as an obstacle: ‘I am bothered by the fact that I have a limit of where I can go. That is, from here, to the next street, I cannot go. You know, that’s what bothers me. If I go for a walk, I know I will go straight, and then left. Because straight and then right, the street stops. Do you understand? This bothers me.’ In this situation, where borders function as a physical obstacle, the overhead space that allows sounds to travel may serve as a reminder of the conflict.

Sound as Overcoming Conflict The often parallel resonance of the religious soundmarks, amplified through speakers and ignoring borders and walls, is what seems to characterize the atmosphere of the area under study. A significant theme revealed (often spontaneously) in the interviews – that everyday life activities were connected to the ‘borders’ – related to the identity of the acoustic community. Accordingly, regarding the parallel resonance of religious sounds, an Egyptian interviewee who has resided in the south for many years as a member of neither the Turkish-Cypriot nor the Greek-Cypriot community, described the area as follows: ‘It is a crossroad of East and West. And in this area, you know, you can . . . 70 . . .

Soundmarks of Conflict in Divided Nicosia

listen to the mosque on one side, from the other side you listen the church, and for me … it is very impressive, to have them both, together’ (02EG). When a stranger or foreigner asks respondents about the sound of the place, their descriptive, spontaneous responses often refer to religious soundmarks as something common. Strikingly, religious soundmarks have acquired a similar acoustic significance in both ethnic communities, signifying everyday life activity and a sense of place or symbol of place attachment. One Turkish resident stated: ‘Church bells are part of the place’ (06T), and a Turkish-Cypriot interviewee described a possible link between the way of listening through sound and the place she spent her childhood: ‘I mean, the bells also call for something, calling people also. These sounds call, it tells you something. As far as I feel. I don’t know why, maybe (because) I am grown up here’ (15TC). Discussions about politics and peace were more common, largely because of the importance of the meaning carried by the sounds under discussion – especially when commenting on ‘foreigners’.6 In the vast majority of these cases, the factor of respect towards the other, conflict-related soundmark, emerged alongside a feeling of calmness during the interviews. The importance and spiritual connotation of these in-place sounds were expressed by 6T, who characterized the place as ‘sacred’, since the imam’s voice is heard all over it. Also, 18TC remarked: ‘When I hear the first call for prayer, I’d say thank God that I woke up.’ The sacred meaning seems unaffected by the electronic character these sounds acquire from the loudspeakers. Indeed, ‘loudness’ was a factor that came up in the interviews, in which even Turkish-Cypriots complained about the volume of the hodja’s call to prayer: 26TC mentioned that ‘the call to prayer is too loud’, and 20TC agreed that ‘the volume usually is up. And it’s not real anymore, before, it was real’. There were also cases where inhabitants noted that the connection between the sound of church bells and the ongoing ceremonies, weddings or funerals it betokened enhanced the sound’s social meaning and connection to place: ‘I listen to the bell, in a way… let’s say it’s the vespers… or there is a wedding. Depending on the sound of the bell, or it can be a fun[eral]’ (23GC). Religious practices of a common resonant place seemed to disregard the existing conflict in such cases. One Turkish interviewee stressed the affective significance attached to both mosque and church sounds as harmonious, non-conflicting, multiethnic soundmarks: ‘We have the sound of the Azan and we have a ringing bell as well. Everyone has a thing of themselves … I get emotional. Whether [it would be] the bells not ringing or the Azan that not sang, I’d cry’ (21T). In this case the interviewee’s attachment to place through sound is evident. . . . 71 . . .

Yiannis Christidis and Angeliki Gazi

A Greek-Cypriot respondent also revealed a connection between sound and place: ‘I connected it with the area. It is a characteristic of this place’ (24GC). A Turkish-Cypriot resident spoke of a musical element in the area: ‘generally, I like the melody, it makes me feel more relaxed’ (20TC). Indication of sound signifying experience was common to the responses of individuals, regardless of their ethnic, religious or cultural group. This suggests the existence of an acoustic community as a whole in terms of acoustic communication, based on a conceptual soundmark that disregards the buffer zone and the ethnic separations across it. In this respect, one Turkish-Cypriot responded that religious soundmarks evkoked feelings of pleasure: ‘Hodja’s Eden and the church’s bells. I enjoy it … I am used to it. I am a Cypriot. There is no difference for me between a church and a mosque. Because I am Cypriot’ (15TC).

Towards an Amalgamated Acoustic Community This chapter’s exploration of Nicosia’s divided centre – its acoustic geography and its inhabitants’ experience of its soundscape (Schafer 1977) – points to the formation of an amalgamated acoustic community (Truax 1995) described by the sounds of everyday professional, social, cultural and religious activity. The presence of a common ‘multi-religious’ soundmark may imply the salience of a ‘Cypriot’ identity characterized by a desire for, or practice of, ethno-religious harmony. The meaning of the resonating call to the faithful, whether Christian or Muslim, provides a conceptual common soundmark that, interestingly, emerges with less intensity than other emotional connections that it triggers. Specifically, musicality, loudness and even the connection to ceremonies are characteristics that assume greater subjective significance in the sonic experience of the divided city’s residents. Mutual respect is expressed towards each ethnic community in the residents’ discursive reflections on religious soundmarks. This might look surprising: given that such common sounds appear in an area of conflict, one could expect these sounds to intensify the conflict. Instead, conflict here appears to be disregarded, compared to the importance of the soundmarks: the religious sounds of prayer and of both communities’ everyday life emerge as a modulating force that regulates normal activities and attitudes. Moreover, as technology intervenes and sounds are amplified, homogeneity has become more discernible. Meanwhile, although the casual observer perceives the obvious soundmarks as ethnically specific, deeper analysis reveals that such soundmarks . . . 72 . . .

Soundmarks of Conflict in Divided Nicosia

are actually part of the common sonic experience of urban dwellers in divided Nicosia. Still, the casual observer would be struck by sonic elements that seem representative of soundmarks specific to ethno-religious division, especially when they resonate with consistency, as does the regular Muslim call to prayer (while one is in the south), or the sound of Christian church bells (while one is in the north). Such ‘markers’ contribute to a common master soundmark that disregards the conflict. While being undoubtedly of cultural and historical significance, they appear, somewhat paradoxically, to encourage connection to place for the members of divided Nicosia’s acoustic community. This study reveals that soundmarks and related sounds of the borderline are part of the everyday life of inhabitants, who develop an emotional meaning through them. Accordingly, place attachment (Smaldone 2006; Scannel and Gifford 2010) is strongly related, via the audible, to the development of acoustic community bonds. In this respect, one might note that ethno-religious soundmarks of conflict offer a symbolic common soundmark that defines the existence of an acoustic community not delimited by conflict and division. Such soundmarks often disconnect from their initial meaning and are transformed into a trademark of the community that accommodates everyday activities. Instead of enhancing conflict, the presence of a symbolic common soundmark functions within the particularity of place, encouraging community bonding through place attachment. To sum up, the identity of the community under study seems firmly based on interactions and interrelations that acquire a dynamic character (Stokowski 2002), rather than reproducing predefined structures. The sonic ‘ethno-religious’ differences, as interpreted by the communities studied, constitute a strong identity of acoustic cross-community belonging as a primary feature of everyday life. Ethnic and religious characteristics are not, in this regard, constitutive of division. In other words, the appearance of a community consisting of smaller groups/micro-communities who share interweaving sonic characteristics presents a challenge to conflict-centred interpretations of ethno-religious division. This amalgamated community does not replace or neutralize the other communities (e.g. in the army, the church or right-wing political parties) that reproduce nationalistic discourses, and people who participate in the acoustic community might also be members of these communities. Our analysis of specific sounds’ connection to place poses vital questions with respect to levels of connection between sound and the environment. The nature and the dynamics of the relationships within an acoustic community are multifaceted, especially in a conflict area like the city centre of divided Nicosia. The presence of different ‘ethno-religious’ communities . . . 73 . . .

Yiannis Christidis and Angeliki Gazi

cannot be taken at face value. They do not in and of themselves reproduce division. Rather, a unique attachment to place, generated through sound produced in the course of everyday, cultural or religious activities, overdetermines the conflict-related connotations of ‘ethno-religious’ soundmarks. The intensity a conflict acquires is regulated through the meaning people give to the soundmarks representing it, and consequently, to their place. The existence of such soundmarks therefore does not have to intensify the conflict; rather, the acoustic community can interpret sounds in such a way that soundmarks are transformed into a resonant, in-place regulator of everyday activity.

YIANNIS CHRISTIDIS is Special Teaching Staff at Cyprus University of Technology, Department of Communication and Internet Studies. He holds an MSc in sound design from the University of Edinburgh, and a PhD in social anthropology of sound from Cyprus University of Technology. He has designed sound and music for audiovisual products, web applications, radio productions and theatrical activities. His ongoing research on the soundscapes of Nicosia was awarded in 2014 by UCF/IAMCR. A related publication is Y. Christidis and M. Quinton (2016), ‘Exploring the Urban Mediterranean Soundscapes in Cyprus and Malta: A Comparative Study’, Interference 5: 103–20. ANGELIKI GAZI is a psychologist. She graduated from the University of Ioannina, Greece, and holds a Master’s degree and PhD in media psychology, with specialization in radio and identity, from the Department of Communication and Media Studies, University of Athens. A related publication is C. Rizopoulos, A. Gazi and Y. Christidis (2014), ‘Place Meaning and the Visually Impaired: The Impact of Sound Parameters on Place Attachment and Identity’, in C. Stephanidis, and M. Antona (eds), Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction: Aging and Assistive Environments (London: Springer).

Notes 1.

Saturation (Glaser and Strauss 1967) was achieved when we reached the number of 26 interviews, so we decided that additional ones were not necessary. . . . 74 . . .

Soundmarks of Conflict in Divided Nicosia 2. A few participants were Greek, Turkish or of other nationalities but lived in the area of interest as part of the communities. The interviews were conducted in either Greek, English or Turkish. Interviews in Greek and English were conducted by the first author; those in Turkish were conducted with the help of a translator. The interviews took place from April to June 2014. 3. This method was selected to accommodate the selection of the participants ‘through referrals made among people who share or know of others who possess some characteristics that are of research interest’ (Biernacki and Waldorf 1981: 141). This was also the case in the area of interest: each of the interviewees would lead us to his or her neighbour as a potential respondent. 4. The term ‘border’ has here a broad conceptual meaning; it is not necessarily identical to the Green Line, the area formed by roadblocks and abandoned houses that defines the buffer zone and divides the city. 5. While this chapter was being written, the sound of the stamp was silenced when the TurkishCypriot authorities decided that a visa is no longer required to cross the Green Line (‘Cyprus Peace Talks’ 2015). 6. One cannot overlook the fact that researchers of Greek origin are foreigners not only to Greek-Cypriots, and even more so to Turkish-Cypriots, but also to Turks living in Cyprus. Thus, responses to questions about the area and the sounds often involved description of the soundmarks of conflict, as an explanation to people unfamiliar with the area.

References Babbie, E. 2010. The Practice of Social Research, 12th edn. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth. Biernacki, P., and D. Waldorf. 1981. ‘Snowball Sampling: Problems and Techniques of Chain Referral Sampling’, Sociologica Methods & Research 10(2): 141–63. Blesser, B., and L.-R. Salter. 2007. Spaces Speak, Are You Listening? Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press. Bose, S. 2007. Contested Lands: Israel-Palestine, Kashmir, Bosnia, Cyprus and Sri Lanka. Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press. Chion, M. 1994. Audio Vision, Sound on Screen, trans. C. Gorbman. New York: Columbia University Press. Chríost, D.M. 2003. Language, Identity and Conflict: A Comparative Study of Language in Ethnic Conflict in Europe and Eurasia. London and New York: Routledge. Coakley, J. 2005a. ‘Conclusion. Towards a Solution?’ in J. Coakley (ed.), The Territorial Management of Ethnic Conflict, 2nd edn. London: Frank Cass, pp. 285–307. ———. 2005b. ‘Introduction. The Challenge’, in J. Coakley (ed.), The Territorial Management of Ethnic Conflict, 2nd edn. London: Frank Cass, pp. 1–21. Corbin, A. 1998. Village Bells: The Culture of the Senses in the Nineteenth-Century French Countryside, trans. M. Thom. New York: Columbia University Press. ‘Cyprus Peace Talks Resume amid “Climate of Optimism”–UN’. 2015, BBC, 15 May 2015. Retrieved 30 August 2015 from http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32734971. Drever, J.L. 2009. ‘Soundwalking: Aural Excursions into the Everyday’, in J. Saunders (ed.), The Ashgate Research Companion to Experimental Music. Aldershot: Ashgate, pp. 163–92. Feld, S. 1996. ‘Waterfalls of Song: An Acoustemology of Place in Resounding in Bosavi, Papua New Guinea’, in S. Feld and K. Basso, Senses of Place. Santa Fe: School of American Research Press, pp. 91–135. Glaser, B., and A.L. Strauss. 1967. The Discovery of Grounded Theory: Strategies for Qualitative Research. Chicago: Aldine. Guindi, F.E. 2008. By Noon Prayer: The Rhythm of Islam. Oxford and New York: Berg. . . . 75 . . .

Yiannis Christidis and Angeliki Gazi Hidalgo, M.C., and B. Hernandez. 2001. ‘Place Attachment: Conceptual and Empirical Questions’, Journal of Environmental Psychology 21(3): 273–81. Kiser, B.H., and D. Lubman. 2008. ‘The Soundscape of Church Bells: Sound Community or Culture Clash?’ Journal of the Acoustical Society of America 123(5): 3807-3807. Kytö, M., N. Remy, and H. Uimonen. 2012. European Acoustic Heritage. Tampere: TAMK & CRESSON. Lacarrière, J. 2003. Nicosia: The Dead Zone, trans. V. Louvrou. Athens: Olkos. Lee, T.S. 2006. ‘Technology and the Production of Islamic Space: The Call to Prayer in Singapore’, in J.C. Post (ed.), Ethnomusicology: A Contemporary Reader. New York: Routledge, pp. 199–208. Low, S.M, and I. Altman. 1991. ‘Place Attachment: A Conceptual Inquiry’, in I. Altman and S.M. Low (eds), Place Attachment. New York: Plenum Press, pp. 1–12. Makagon, D., and M. Neumann. 2009. Recording Culture: Audio Documentary and the Ethnographic Experience. Los Angeles: Sage. Mazumdar, S., and S. Mazumdar. 2004. ‘Religion and Place Attachment: A Study of Sacred Places’, Journal of Environmental Psychology (24)3: 385–97. McLuhan, M. 1967. The Medium Is the Message. CA: Gingko Press. Oktay, D. 2007. ‘An Analysis and Review of the Divided City of Nicosia, Cyprus, and New Perspectives’, Geography 92(3): 231–47. Said, N. 2010. ‘Place Attachment and Physical Detachment: The Ambience of Contemporary Cities Intra-muros’, International Seminar Arquitectonics Network, Barcelona, 1 June 2010. Scannel, L., and R. Gifford. 2010. ‘Defining Place Attachment: A tripartite Organizing Framework’, Journal of Environmental Psychology 30: 1–10. Schaeffer, P. 1966. Traité des Objects Musicaux. Paris: Seuil. Schafer, M. 1977. The Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World. Rochester, VT: Destiny Books. Schreier, M. 2013. Qualitative Content Analysis in Practice, 2nd edn. London: Sage. Sepos, A. 2008. The Europeanization of Cyprus: Polity, Policies and Politics. London: Palgrave Macmillan. Smaldone, D. 2006. ‘The Role of Time in Place Attachment’, Proceedings of the 2006 Northeastern Recreation Research Symposium, pp. 47–56. Retrieved 20 August 2015 from http://www .nrs.fs.fed.us/pubs/gtr/gtr_nrs-p-14/7-smaldone-p-14.pdf. Solomonides, N. 2008. ‘One State or Two? The Search for a Solution to the Cyprus Problem’, International Public Policy Review 4(1): 61–76. Stokowski, P.A. 2002. ‘Languages of Place and Discourses of Power: Constructing New Senses of Place’ Journal of Leisure Research 34: 368–82. Truax, B. 1984. Acoustic Communication. Norwood: Ablex Publishing. ———. 1995. ‘Sound in Context: Acoustic Communication and Soundscape Research at Simon Fraser University’. 21st International Computer Music Conference Proceedings, Computer Music Association, Banff, 3–7 September 1995. Retrieved 7 April 2016 from http://wfae.proscenia .net/library/articles/truax_SFUniversity.pdf. ———, (ed). 1999 [1978]. Handbook for Acoustic Ecology. Retrieved 27 April 2015 from http://www .sfu.ca/sonic-studio/handbook. Tuan, Y.-F. 1977. Space and Place. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. Velasco, D. 2000. ‘Island Landscape: Following in Humboldt’s Footsteps through the Acoustic Spaces of the Tropics’, Leonardo Music Journal 10: 21–24. Westerkamp, H. 1988. ‘Listening and Soundmaking: A Study of Music-as-Environment’, Master’s thesis. Burnaby: Simon Fraser University. Wissman, T. 2014. Geographies of Urban Sound. Farnham: Ashgate.

. . . 76 . . .

B

Chapter 3

RIDGE OVER TROUBLED . . .

Susan J. Drucker and Gary Gumpert

Introduction On 1 June 2015, a Guardian headline read, ‘Divided Cyprus begins to build bridges’ (Smith 2015). The headline had been used before to report on the division, now in its fifth decade. The most recent version tells of how the new Turkish-Cypriot leader, Mustafa Akıncı, is seeking a resolution to the protracted conflict, suggesting his community must regard their GreekCypriot neighbours on the island not as enemies but partners. The bridges of Cyprus are not new, and all sorts of physical and metaphorical bridges have significance for the quest to understand the division of the island. The description of bridge building by the current Turkish-Cypriot leader is particularly poignant, given Akıncı’s history. A three-time mayor of Turkish-Cypriot–controlled Nicosia, he partnered with the former GreekCypriot mayor, Lellos Demetriades, to build a bridge of relationships. Like Akıncı’s stroll across the UN (United Nations) buffer zone arm in arm with the current Greek-Cypriot President, Nicos Anastasiades, confidence-building measures such as the (re)connection of mobile telephone and electricity grids are both symbolic and pragmatic. The bridges of Cyprus have been corporeal, symbolic and metaphoric, and have long played a role in the troubled history of Cyprus. This study was conducted using ethnographic research methods: observation, participant observation and formal, informal and semi-structured interviewing. Descriptive, focused and selective observations were conducted in selected spaces that constructed or still construct bridges in Cyprus and their social settings. The environmental elements present within

Susan J. Drucker and Gary Gumpert

or surrounding these social settings were also observed. These methods were employed over the period 1994–2016. In particular, this chapter will examine three bridges in Cyprus, two of which function as social settings and the other as a symbolic environmental element. These bridges are the Blue Bridge, built in 2006 over the Green Line1 that divides the island in two; the Bridge of Eleftheria Square, located in the centre of Nicosia, and the communication/media bridges of Cyprus. By analysing these very situated and material practices, this work aims to look at intended and unintended consequences of practices and innovations that could overcome the divided communication landscape, as well as factors and circumstances that may obstruct the bridging of the divide.

Bridges (of Memory and Nostalgia) over Division Communication scholars study memory and collective memory as a ‘phenomenon of community’ (Blair 2006: 52). Resorting to memory, ‘especially in its collective forms’, is key to giving people ‘a coherent identity, a national narrative, a place in the world’ (Said 2000: 179). Collective memory, being ‘an overtly political and emotionally invested phenomenon’ (ibid. 53), involves the concerns and goals of the present at the heart of the adaptions to the past. Memory is based on the re-representation of an event, a place, a person (Huyssen 1995: 3) and is strongly connected to both time and place. Moreover, scholars studying (urban) spaces have pointed to the importance of the temporal dimension of space. For Walter Benjamin, cities embody ‘a combination of temporalities – past and present – articulated’ (Shapiro 2010: 34). Or as Benjamin said, ‘a thousand configurations of life, from enduring edifices to passing fashions’ (Benjamin 1999: 4–5). And according to Yi-Fu Tuan (1977), space is a place to which human beings have given meaning. Lefebvre (1991) and Soja (1996) argued that space is understood as a physical and social landscape that is imbued with meaning in everyday place-bound social practices. This essay focuses on spaces of communication, with particular emphasis on bridges as conveyors of memory and identity. Bridges span, bridges cross, bridges connect. Bridges transport, move, convey and protect those that cross them. And what is between the two points bridged or beneath the bridge may become a strange non-place. Each bridge can create, rewrite or disturb individual and collective memory. Strong bonds connect collective experience, memory and geography. For example one need only consider the ‘method of loci’, a memory technique dating to Cicero and Quintilian. . . . 78 . . .

Bridge over Troubled . . .

The work of Gaston Bachelard has explored and advanced the connection between people, place and memory. In The Poetics of Space, Bachelard (1964: 8) introduces the concept of ‘topoanalysis’, which he defines as ‘the systematic psychological study of the sites of our intimate lives’. Like Bachelard, Cypriots attach importance to memories of home. Bridges create spaces for community gatherings and development of the shared memories that are crucial to the creation of identity. Such bridges strengthen identity by emphasizing difference – who one is not – and defining what is on the other side as different because it is on the other side. In some other cases, the building of bridges actually creates opportunities for participation in the planning of shared experiences, connection and sense of community. The role of nostalgia as it relates to memory and space (and identity) is central in evaluating Cyprus and the bridges of division. Boym (2001) is among those that have recognized that space is central to the concept of nostalgia. According to Aden (1995: 21), ‘nostalgia indicates individual’s desire to regain some control over their lives in an uncertain time’. Aden views nostalgic communication as a means of temporal escape. He stresses the need to facilitate the continuity of identity, an aim served by nostalgic communication. Rebecca Bryant (2008, 2014) notes the function of nostalgia in the reification of social identities in her examination of discourses of nostalgia in the Cypriot north. According to the Bryant, nostalgia may be experienced collectively, in the sense that it occurs when we are with others who shared the events(s) being recalled. In this way, it is a form of conversational play and a strategy for bonding. Nostalgia is also experienced collectively in the sense that one is nostalgic for the collective – the characteristics and activities of a group or institution in which the individual was a participant. Cypriots’ frequent nostalgia-imbued narratives of places of shared memory and loss – of the times when Greek-Cypriots and TurkishCypriots lived together – are sites of community and communication. Each of the bridges discussed in this chapter take the form of a medium of communication. Some of those media fall under traditional classifications (e.g. newspapers, radio, television, telephone, the Internet), but others represent an expansive interpretation of a medium as a conduit or channel of communication. In that sense, outdoor public spaces and architecture are seen as a medium of communication, in so far as they communicate symbolically or offer sites for interaction (Gehl 1997: 55). This latter approach to the medium of places is reflected in the work of Thomas Mitchell (2008: 4–5), who describes the range of social functions served by public spaces: ‘A symptom of history’s ambivalent relation to media is the way it marginalizes architecture as (at best) the third most important medium in . . . 79 . . .

Susan J. Drucker and Gary Gumpert

its purview, well down the standard hierarchy that places painting at the top, sculpture a distant second, while the oldest, most pervasive medium human beings have devised, the art of constructing spaces, languishes at the bottom.’ Another way to look at this is to use a ‘media ecological’ framework (Strate 2014: 34), which allows the bridges of Cyprus to be conceived as ‘information environments’. Media ecology is an interdisciplinary field studying the intersections between media, communication, technology and culture. Ecology stimulates studies of environments that examine their structure, content and impact on people. An environment is seen as a complex message system (Lum 2000). The media ecological perspective on understanding the biases of media technologies is perhaps best illustrated through a series of assertions by Christine Nystrom. Because of the different symbolic forms in which they encode information, different media have different intellectual and emotional biases. Different physical forms encode and transmit messages differently and with a different bias. Likewise, the distinct physical form of a medium dictates differences in conditions of attendance and has a distinct social bias (Nystrom 1973). As Mattern (2004: 1) writes: The ecological metaphor thus enables media scholars to examine not only ‘the media’ themselves, but also the physical and social environments within which they operate and which they help to create. The metaphor seems equally appropriate for the study of built environments – not only because architecture does indeed constitute a material ecology, but also because, as many media ecologists have acknowledged, architecture functions as a medium, a message system that shapes ‘human perception, understanding, feeling,’ behavior, and ‘value’.

Utilizing this framework, a medium is here understood as a type of context and/or space in which physical attributes can structure communicative interaction (Strate 2014: 46; Scolari 2012).

The Media Bridges From a media ecological perspective, the articulation of media stresses that technology is qualitatively distinct from the content of the medium. When McLuhan (1964: 7) uttered his famous aphorism, ‘the medium is the message’, he was stressing that form also mattered. ‘“The medium is the message” is McLuhan’s wake-up call … [to those who] tend to ignore the medium and only pay attention to content’ (Strate 2008: 130). In Cyprus, the form of the bridge is as important as its content. . . . 80 . . .

Bridge over Troubled . . .

However, on an island as small as Cyprus the media bridges, including the post, telephone, radio and television, are vulnerable to collapse and still weak.2 After 1974, delivery of a letter bearing the postage stamp of the internationally non-recognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was considered a diplomatic act of recognition, so formal postal service was severed and informal methods of delivery devised. All mail intended for the north reaches the destination via Turkey, as the Universal Postal Union does not recognize the TRNC as a separate entity. Also, the two parts of the island have separate telephone service providers; calls in the north are currently rerouted through Turkey, and an integrated power grid allows one side to help the other in case of a power outage. In May 2015, when the two communities’ leaders Nicos Anastasiades and Mustafa Akıncı were negotiating confidence-building measures, they agreed on new pedestrian crossings. They also created another media bridge by linking mobile phone networks to promote the divided Cypriots’ interaction via mobile phones (Psillides 2015). The mainstream media landscape of Cyprus has been the subject of numerous studies (e.g. Terzis 2007; UNESCO 2013) addressing the physical landscape division that causes information for the north to be reported separately from that for the south. Media inventories have typically focused on media institutions and mass media, and have catalogued and analysed parallel landscapes. A partisan press aligned to specific political parties is part of the media landscape on both sides (Christophorou, Şahin and Pavlou 2010). In the south, the role of the church is also noticeable (ibid.). There are eight daily newspapers (including one daily sports publication) and twenty-six weekly publications in the south.3 In the north, there are eight different daily newspapers and three weekly papers.4 The south has twelve island-wide TV stations and eighteen island-wide radio stations;5 some are state organizations and others are privately run. In the areas administered by Turkish-Cypriots there are two public TV stations, six public radio stations, and four privately owned TV and broadcast stations including AM, FM and shortwave radio.6 Two more FM stations (BFBS Cyprus and BFBS Radio2) broadcast from the two British Sovereign bases in the south at Akrotiri and Dhekelia. Also, a recent mapping project identified twenty-six community media organizations dispersed all over Cyprus (Voniati, Doudaki and Carpentier, in review). Governmental or semi-governmental patterns of broadcast ownership have been an important element of the broadcast landscape. In the south, the Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation (CyBC) was a semi-governmental organization operating as a monopoly until 1990, when private radio and . . . 81 . . .

Susan J. Drucker and Gary Gumpert

television began operations. In the north, Bayrak (BRT) is the government radio and television outlet. Both CyBC and BRT have daily broadcasts from Nicosia in Greek, Turkish and English. Broadcasting has historically been linked to the ‘motherlands’ of Greece and Turkey. Relays of Greek and Turkish stations are available on several channels due to the increased prevalence of satellite radio and television from Turkey and Greece. A common media landscape offers a unique communication bridge, but (mainstream) media bridges that transcend borders are difficult to document beyond anecdotal stories of listening or watching a particular film or sports event carried by a broadcaster ‘on the other side.’ This was corroborated in a series of interviews conducted with representatives of CyBC (M. Skoedis, personal communications, 10 April 2001 and 24 July 2003) and BRT (H. Çobanoğlu, personal communication, 22 July 1999). Still, the media bridges have the potential to create shared memories. In 1998, when a television station in the north showed the popular movie Titanic (under questionable circumstances with regard to copyright), reports indicated television viewers tuned in on both sides of the Green Line. Similar examples exist for common viewing of sporting events broadcast by one side or the other and of interest to all (M. Skoedis, personal communication, 10 April 2001; Kinzer 1998). These types of collective viewing experiences can foster a sense of communality, community, collective consciousness and experience. Which media outlet attempts to engineer a bridge is significant, as perception can determine whether the bridge will be used. Media bridges can carry the uncomfortable baggage of unresolved political tensions. When we asked Cypriots whether they consumed the media of the other side – particularly the formats directed at the other community, such as a Greek-Cypriot station’s Turkish language programming – the common response was ‘Why expose myself to propaganda?’ This was particularly true of bridges created by government-supported broadcast outlets (e.g. CyBC and Bayrak). When media bridges were created by alternative sources like civil society groups, negative perceptions that had plagued earlier face-to-face bicommunal meetings sometimes limited audience and influence. In the case of some bicommunal meetings, nationalists on both sides objected or at least perceived the meetings as disguised efforts towards reunification of the island under unacceptable terms (M. Hadjipavlou, personal communication, 21 November 1999). Though media bridges certainly have the potential to cultivate and shape collective memory, examples of sustained media influence in this regard are atypical. Still, modest collaborative mass media bridges have been developed within existing media outlets. Bilingual programming such as CyBC’s BIZ/ . . . 82 . . .

Bridge over Troubled . . .

Emeis provides intercommunal airtime and features ‘the human aspects of the Cyprus Problem’ (Collaborative Media Initiative [CMI] 2012). Included in this initiative is a programme on CyBC2 called Under the Same Sky. Also, two Turkish-Cypriot journalists have for several years published regular columns in the Greek-Cypriot newspaper Politis (CMI 2012; Levent 2015). Cyprus Dialogue, a weekly newspaper printed between 2004 and 2008, featured articles in Turkish, Greek and English. This advertising-supported publication, produced by a Turkish-Cypriot editor and Greek-Cypriot journalists working together, opted not to to apply for UN or EU (European Union) funding in the interests of remaining independent (Tarquinio 2005). A number of collaborative media bridges have been initiated outside the mainstream media realm as civil society projects. Media bridges emerging from civil society reflect a very specific form of participatory planning. Some civil society projects in Cyprus, particularly the early endeavours from 1974 through the mid-1990s, reflected a degree of local participation by members of Cypriot society who were willing to challenge the majority by taking steps toward non-governmental (bicommunal) peace-building movement initiatives. Those participating in such workshops, programmes and projects, which often were organized or funded by foreign governments or agencies, made contact and interacted in the name of a common vision. The bicommunal groups sought to develop shared knowledge and explored innovative ways of enhancing the public good. The participatory element of the media bridges opened up a number of possibilities for collaboration that did not exist in traditional media institutions. In May 2003 one of the first short-lived attempts to initiate a bicommunal alternative radio station began in Potamia, a village of 448 inhabitants six kilometres from the Nicosia-Larnaca highway. Potamia lies adjacent to the buffer zone. The village’s identity is rooted in being a truly mixed village where Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots continue to live and work side by side. For a time Potamia had its own local radio station, which broadcast news, education, music, local cultural programmes and announcements of events, births, deaths and marriages. Radio Potamia was a symbol of a bicommunal spirit, trying to ‘bring back the good old days’ (Gumpert and Drucker 2003) and the vision of Loukis Papaphillippou, president of the mainstream broadcaster Antenna TV in Cyprus since 1989, who grew up in Potamia. The slogan of the station, included in the formal application, was: ‘Where we used to be good neighbors, we shall again be good neighbors and better neighbors’ (ibid.). At present, though, Radio Potamia is no longer operating bicommunally (N. Vilanides, personal communication, 21 February 2017). . . . 83 . . .

Susan J. Drucker and Gary Gumpert

Talk of the Island started as the first bilingual radio programme broadcast island-wide by the Turkish-Cypriot community radio station Radyo Mayıs (CMI 2012). The programme was funded by the Washington, DC, nonprofit organization HasNa Inc., and later by a grant from the United States Institute of Peace. Talk of the Island was transmitted live in Cyprus every Saturday from 2005 to 2008. Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot hosts provided programming in Turkish and Greek. The broadcasts covered Nicosia, Kyrenia, Morphou, Famagusta and Larnaca. Placing division, similarities and differences at the foreground of its programming, the show ‘featured a unique call-in option for those listeners who wished to contribute to the discussion, thus serving as a forum for the promotion of intercommunal dialogue’ (ibid.: 14): ‘Radio Pyrgos, a [commercial Greek-Cypriot] radio station based in the Paphos region rebroadcast the programme for a short period. Once independent from external funding, the programme continued in the format of ‘Talk of the Island Youth’, which ceased in July 2010’. In 2008 the commercial Greek-Cypriot Nicosia-based Radio Astra adapted the format, launching Cypriots Come Let’s Talk. Radio Astra had also included broadcasts about ‘the other side’s stories’ in its programme much earlier, in 1995. Perhaps the most successful and well-established component of the drive towards collaborative media is the Cyprus Community Media Centre (CCMC) (Carpentier and Doudaki 2014; Carpentier 2015). Launched with the financial support of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), the CCMC was established in 2009. Working under the CCMC, the Collaborative Media Initiative (2012: 6) ‘has tried to look at the media landscape as a unified one, bringing together a variety of approaches and documenting initiatives and best practices that all aim to bring two distinct systems of media governance closer together’. The aim is an integrated media landscape in Cyprus ‘in the interim period before solution is achieved’ (ibid.). The CCMC’s offices are in the buffer zone in Nicosia, in temporary buildings next to the Ledra Palace, which once was a hotel and is now home to UN peacekeeping forces. The CCMC’s activities include media training workshops and media literacy training, but it also loans equipment and provides production support, so that through ‘access to a state-of-theart production studio, CCMC promotes the benefits of community-based media by giving people the skills to be in control of their own messages.’7 In the 2000s and 2010s, several community media initiatives appeared on the island, addressing bicommunal issues and offering alternative discourses on the Cyprus Problem, often producing content in both Greek and Turkish (and also other languages) (Voniati, Doudaki and Carpentier forthcoming). For example, the Turkish-Cypriot community radio station . . . 84 . . .

Bridge over Troubled . . .

Radyo Mayıs, mentioned earlier, which was established in 2003, places strong emphasis on the discourse of one united Cyprus, addressing very critically the other forms of nationalism on the island. Also, the online Media Collective 35-33, established in 2013, ‘aims to bridge the cultural divides that are reproduced in Cyprus via socio-political and economic gaps’.8 This is accomplished by providing a sharing platform to disseminate information from the location 35°0′N 33°0′E, Cyprus, to the world. Published in three languages, it is an inter-communal grassroots endeavor edited collectively by a group of independent activists, scholars and citizen journalists based in Cyprus, Denmark, Turkey, Germany, Greece and England. Media Collective 35-33 provides a platform for multimedia content and welcomes pieces on a wide range of topics, from the environment and online privacy to health, social movements, minorities and immigrants. Similarly, in April 2013, the Web-based radio station MYCYradio was established under the auspices of CCMC and supported by the European Commission Representation in Cyprus. As the station’s website states: ‘MYCYradio aims to engage with and serve all communities living in Cyprus, by providing a platform for a diversity of voices to be heard, while also highlighting cultural and linguistic diversity, encourage social integration and promote a culture of active citizenship and participatory democracy.’9 Its strong focus on linguistic diversity is reflected in its broadcasts of programmes in Greek, Turkish, English, Arabic, Cameroonian, French, Lingala, Persian, Sinhalese, Spanish, Swahili and Tamil (Carpentier 2015). MYCYradio also explicitly addresses bicommunal issues and offers alternative interpretations of the Cyprus Problem, challenging the divisive hegemonic nationalist discourses. As already discussed, the expansion of Internet10 service on the island has created opportunities for people from the north and the south (and Cypriots of the diaspora) to communicate and exchange ideas in blogs, forums or other web-based communication platforms. Still, no technology on its own can overcome thirty years of physical isolation (prior to the opening of the crossing points in 2003) or the sentiment of distrust towards the other that has been cemented over the years. The collapse of media bridges is seldom the result of technological capacity or limitation, but rather results from decision, language and desire not to transcend what is being bridged. The merging of history, social policy and sometimes accidents can cause any span to collapse. This brief overview of some of Cyprus’s media bridges across division reflects ingenuity and good intentions, mostly driven by civil society, yet many of these projects have been short-lived. Some ended due to lack of funding, some due to lack of audience interest. Some continued with volun. . . 85 . . .

Susan J. Drucker and Gary Gumpert

teer manpower, and some have encountered political tensions. But whereas the mainstream media on the island largely function as non-bridges by focusing on and operating within the logics of division, these civil society and community attempts, with all their limitations, function as small-scale alternative media bridges that cut across the divide and foster an encompassing discourse articulated around the possibility of coexistence and reunification. Looked at from a media ecological perspective, which can help us understand ‘how the form and inherent biases of communication media help create the environment in which people symbolically construct the world’ (Lum 2000: 3), these alternative media bridges have created a media environment that fosters interaction and facilitates co-existence while supporting a culture of shared Cypriotness.

The Blue Bridge Like the media bridges, physical bridges have both fostered and suspended opportunities for connection and communication. One of the bridges of division was the Blue Bridge in Nicosia, construction of which began in 2006 but did not end; instead it started and stopped midway. This bridge, which did not bridge or span, conveyed a message of disconnection. Its brief presence came to signify separation, apartness, misunderstanding, division and occupation. It was symbolic of the then thirty-two years of detachment. It Figure 3.1. The Blue Bridge, April 2006

. . . 86 . . .

Bridge over Troubled . . .

also symbolically signified the presence of Turkish troops in Cyprus. The stated intent of the bridge was to facilitate the interaction of Greek- and Turkish-Cypriots, but instead it underscored the hand of the Turkish military and thus created yet another obstruction to potential interaction. Prior to 2003, any communication between the two communities was extremely limited, if not nonexistent. But when leadership shifted from Rauf Denktash to Mehmet Ali Talat in 2003, the north initiated the first opening-up of the checkpoints, allowing for traffic between the Republic of Cyprus (RoC) and the northern portion of the island controlled by Turkish forces. Also, both sides relaxed the travel restrictions between the two areas, though the Republic of Cyprus still barred the movement of Turkish citizens. However, the most obvious opening would have been to extend Ledra Street (the main street leading from the moat to the checkpoint) and connect it with its counterpart (Lokamci) in the north, thereby providing a commercial pedestrian way between the two halves of Nicosia.11 The reopening of Ledra Street had been anticipated by both sides as marking an important step towards reunification of the city and eventually the island. Then Greek-Cypriot mayor Michael Zampelas stated: ‘It sends a strong message of the future and I hope the politicians will see that message’ (Gumpert and Drucker 2006). His Turkish-Cypriot counterpart at the time, Kutlay Erk, supported the reopening, noting that ‘there is a genuine necessity to open Ledra Street and we did our best to open the street’ (ibid.). However, the question of where these distinct ‘zones’ would begin and end became entwined in the controversy framing the incomplete construction of a bridge as an issue of territorial incursion. A 28 November 2006 aide-memoire issued by the Foreign Ministry of the RoC argued that the commencement of the construction of permanent ‘border’ structures by Turkish forces, including a bridge on Ledra Street passing over Ermou Street, violated ‘the military status quo’ in that area. In order to facilitate the opening of the Ledra Street Check Point, the Government insisted from the outset that it was absolutely necessary that all physical obstacles and impediments, established in the area as a direct result of the continuing occupation by the Turkish Armed Forces, should be removed. Particular attention should be paid in the Hermes Street area, which intersects Ledra Street just south of the Green Line of 1964 [1963], because of credible information that this area is probably mined and booby-trapped. (Gumpert and Drucker 2006)

But the work continued, and by the evening of 28 December the Blue Bridge on the Green Line became a reality – a bridge that remained incomplete, ending abruptly at the north side of the buffer zone pointing south. The . . . 87 . . .

Susan J. Drucker and Gary Gumpert

Cyprus Government asserted that the bridge was inside the buffer, arguing that this act ‘moves the Green Zone a few meters’ (ibid.). The TurkishCypriots argued that the bridge was fully within their current post-1974 zone and to accept any other interpretation would suggest a loss of TurkishCypriot controlled land. The bridge, a monument to frustration and a testament to an inability to communicate, remained incomplete and evolved into a symbol that each side used for its own purposes. The bridge was a last resort and not even the choice of the Turkish-Cypriots who constructed it; Kutlay Erk said the bridge was ‘put there by necessity because of its many stakeholders: politicians, tourists, immigration officers, the municipalities and the army’ (K. Erk, personal communication, 19 April 2006). He noted that plans had to be changed to meet the needs of the army in particular. Options explored included a proposal to build an underground area that was rejected in anticipation of a negative Greek-Cypriot reaction rooted in security concerns. Also considered were gates that would be closed to pedestrians when the army passed by, but this idea too was rejected. Yet another option was to divert military use of the roads to other streets within the city, but that would have resulted in a more visible military presence in Nicosia and, according to Erk, ‘a mayor hates to see hundreds of people in uniform walking the city’ (ibid.). Ultimately, an elevated footpath became the only feasible option. The mayor of Turkish-Cypriot Nicosia noted the disconnection between municipal and upper administrative or ‘presidential’ decision-making (K. Erk, personal communication, 29 April 2006). These issues are both symbolic and complex. In a conversation between the authors and Mehmet Talat, the Turkish-Cypriot leader at the time, Talat asserted that nothing illegal had been done and that the bridge was located on the Turkish-Cypriot side. In response to the question whether the bridge crossed over a road used primarily by Turkish military, Talat stated that the road accommodated Turkish-Cypriot soldiers and that the decision to build a bridge over the road was his alone, not a Turkish decision. This was the only viable alternative. When it was suggested that the bridge was a poor public relations symbol, Talat said: ‘I give you a challenge. If he [i.e. the then Greek-Cypriot President Tassos Papadopoulos] gives me a written paper saying that he will demolish his wall [referring to all of the barricades along the Green Line], I will take down the bridge!’ (M.A. Talat, personal communication, 22 April 2006). This dispute over the bridge ‘delayed for a year the inauguration of this crossing between the two halves of the city, the world’s last divided capital’ ( Jansen 2007).

. . . 88 . . .

Bridge over Troubled . . .

This bridge was a form of communication, in that the Blue Bridge on the Green Line represented the ultimate stalemate, symbolizing non-communication. Quite clearly, a pedestrian bridge crossing over a Turkish military road was unacceptable to the Greek-Cypriot government. It was also apparent that the Turkish-Cypriot side could not eliminate that road without risking a confrontation with the Turkish authorities. The result was to create a face-saving victory for the two sides: the bridge symbolizes a Turkish-Cypriot gesture towards reconciliation by connecting the city via the bridge, and the Greek-Cypriot government’s rebuff to it justifies the need for the presence of Turkish military patrolling beneath the bridge. The Blue Bridge became a symbol that reached across a military road and peacekeeping buffer zone. It was a bright and jarring addition to the cityscape, creating new, often unacceptable memories but not shared interpretations. To some Turkish-Cypriots the bridge represented objectionable nationalism over localism; to some it represented accommodation of an unwelcome military presence; to others it was a modern intrusion in the historic heart of the city. In addition to all these perceptions, some Greek-Cypriots saw the message of the bridge as yet another aggression – a small but new territorial incursion both physically (protruding metres into the buffer zone) and symbolically (changing the status quo on movement). James Carey (1998) noted that transformations involve not only technical change but the complex alteration of the physical, symbolic and media ecologies that together determine the impact of the medium. The symbolic Blue Bridge demonstractes the connection between a physical structure and the transmission of its message.

The Bridge at Eleftheria Square Urban planner and historian Lewis Mumford (1966) wrote of the city as a palimpsestic medium (Mattern 2004: 3), a manuscript that has been written on more than once. This is certainly the case with Nicosia, a multilayered, ancient city that gives added meaning to the term ‘contested space’. In the topography of this capital divided by the Green Line, the old city is encircled by the formidable Venetian Wall and the moat that was later built around it. Nicosia also has a long historical tradition of bridges. Medieval maps indicate a river existed as a natural divide within the old city (Papadakis 2006). To some extent, Old Nicosia is a divided island, with the Turkish-Cypriot Lefkosha on the one side and the urban sprawl of Greek-Cypriot Lefkosia extending into the distance on the other. The irony of this geographical . . . 89 . . .

Susan J. Drucker and Gary Gumpert

Figure 3.2. Eleftheria Square, June 2014

condition is that access from the south to the north through the checkpoints, while bureaucratically clumsy, still allows for movement from one side to the other. On the other hand, although there is no political restriction from one side to the other, the physical obstacle of the moat limits movement and access by reducing pedestrian and automotive access to three or four points. Both sides of Nicosia’s population have been moving outward, away from the city centre towards suburbia. The municipality on the RoC’s side faces a series of challenging tasks: to energize the inner city, to connect with the north (across the Green Line) and to connect the area with the rest of the city – from which it is, to some extent, geographically disconnected. Infrastructure projects for Nicosia worth some €174 million were announced in 2015 by President of the RoC Nicos Anastasiades (‘Projects Worth €174 Million’ 2015), and plans for a project to bridge the ‘old’ and ‘newer’ commercial districts of the Old City and central downtown area had already begun in 2005. The primary focus was on the revitalization of Eleftheria Square, in the centre of Nicosia. ‘Eleftheria Square has a long-standing reputation of being the linchpin between the modern city and the historical centre, as well as a reference point for Nicosia’s residents’ (‘Eleftheria Square Moving Ahead’ 2015). The Eleftheria Square project was said to represent the future of Nicosia, setting the centre on a track for revitalization and development (ibid.). It is the site . . . 90 . . .

Bridge over Troubled . . .

Figure 3.3. Eleftheria Square, January 2016

that comes to mind when recalling communal celebrations (e.g. Cyprus’s accession to the European Union), political rallies (e.g. votes surrounding the referendum on the Annan Plan vote in 2004) or celebration of sporting events.12 The Eleftheria project reveals a city further shifting its city centre away from the confines of the walled city and geographically further from the Turkish-Cypriots. It pivots the heart of the city outward, away from the Green Line and the Venetian Walls. In 2005 the municipality announced an architectural competition for the redesign of Eleftheria Square. A brief was issued under the administration of Michael Zambella, and the competition was won by Zaha Hadid, a then London-based renowned Iraqi architect and the first woman recipient of the Pritzker Architectural Prize in 2004, who on 31 March 2016 died suddenly in Miami, Florida. Under the following two mayors, Eleni Mavrou (2007–2011) and Constantinos Yorkadjis (2011 to the present), the uncompleted project remained a sprawling worksite. As of early 2017 the vision of a vibrant, resurrected public space remained unfulfilled, for even as the project was beset by problems of design, construction, and perhaps corruption, it also was being undertaken at a time when the Cypriot economy had significantly deteriorated. The final design was initially presented to the municipality in 2011 under the mayoralty of Eleni Mavrou, with the initiation of the project connected to the country’s ascendency to the presidency of the Council of the . . . 91 . . .

Susan J. Drucker and Gary Gumpert

European Union. The larger part of the project was to receive funding from the Directorate for European Programmes of 25.5 million (85 per cent of total estimated cost). The optimism about rejuvenation quickly diminished. Some critics deplored Hadid’s vision, while some expressed concern that she had never visited the Nicosia site but left the actual research and execution to Christos Passas, a Cypriot architect working with her in London. According to the Passas, who did visit the site, being a Cypriot who had studied and worked in the United States and the U.K. ‘provides a perspective not shared by many local people completely based on local everyday life [and] it is refreshing to see the situation with a little detachment’ (C. Passas, personal communication, 30 October 2015). The complex and sensitive nature of the project was exacerbated by his awareness of the very high expectations for the project. According to Passas, ‘they knew at the time the project would upset people’ (ibid.). The critics argued that Hadid’s ‘provocative arrogance’ made her ‘totally out of touch with conditions at the particular site [while] [l]ight, wind, character, materiality are all key to the success of places’ (‘Can Zaha Help Cyprus?’ 2013). Some protestors argued that the design was essentially a bridge rather than a ‘square’ (Charalambous and Hadjichristos 2009), because part of the Eleftheria Square project stipulated inclusion of a bridge to rejuvenate the square as a public space and provide convenient pedestrian access. At the time, Mayor Mavrou referred to Hadid as ‘“an authority in the field of architecture” whose “groundbreaking remodeling of Eleftheria Square has created an uninterrupted flow” between the areas within and outside the old city’ (Evripidou 2008). For Mavrou, ‘Eleftheria Square, having served for over a century as the heart of the capital, “continues to be the most important link between the historic centre and the contemporary city”’ (ibid.). But although Eleftheria Square is seen as the centre of the city, this position has only recently entered the collective consciousness. The name translates as Freedom Square. It used to be known as Metaxas Square (Greek: Πλατεία Μεταξά), but it was renamed in 1974 following a competition held at the suggestion of the then Mayor of Nicosia. Prior to 1974 the centre of the city was considered to be Faneromeni Square, but after the 1974 invasion its location was uncomfortably close to the Green Line, and the centre moved further south. Another complication of the project was that construction was occurring in an ancient archaeological site that simultaneously provided public services. According to Passas, the architects had little opportunity to do any excavation prior to the beginning of the project, in part because of the eco. . . 92 . . .

Bridge over Troubled . . .

nomic crisis that hit Cyprus in the spring of 2013 (C. Passas, personal communication, 30 October 2015). In fact, in 2009, the plan had to be revised to take account of the archaeological discoveries (Thomas 2009). Hadid, for her part, claimed that ‘the new design will do more than just connect places, but also people. The opening up of the moat and its redesign would provide a room in the city for people to move freely, she said, adding that the evolution of a place did not just depend on its design, but on the people too’ (Evripidou 2008). The architect also stressed ‘the importance of reflecting the “layers of history” in a place, rather than letting them disappear’ (ibid.). Responding to the critique about not having visited Nicosia prior to designing the project, Hadid claimed that there was no set obligation, and that she sometimes prefers to design a project before seeing the actual place (ibid.). The architects did understand the need to look at the extended area of Nicosia and arrive at a vision for the project associated with the area. The vision in this case was to make the whole of the municipality into a greener space, though in practice the idea was limited to space between the square and the wall. Passas noted that ‘this was the extent… whether we agreed or disagreed … we had misgivings as well’ (C. Passas, personal communication, 30 October 2015). Fiscal issues and problems with contractors brought the project to a standstill. Construction stopped when pedestrian traffic was diverted to a temporary footbridge connecting Stasinou Avenue with old Nicosia and serving an average of eight hundred people each day. The project lay dormant while the clock ticked toward the EU funding deadline. Ultimately, 2014 saw a ‘divorce agreement’ between the municipality and the contractor so that the project could be rekindled (ibid.). As of early 2017, concrete for the bridge has been poured, but the underground infrastructure, which includes parking, is unfunded and incomplete. The Nicosia Municipality has announced that construction is entering its final stage and the anticipated completion date is in mid-2017 (Andreou 2016). Though project aspired to create a communicative space with the construction of a bridge that would rejuvenate the square as a public space and mkae pedestrian access more convenient, Eleftheria Square in 2017 is almost unrecognizable compared what we saw in 1994 when we first visited the place and since 2012 the site has been a disrupted place of sputtering construction. Architecture normally functions as a site of communication and as a medium (Gehl 1997; Mitchell 2008), shaping perception, memory and identity. The unfinished Eleftheria Square is a space of interrupted free movement and communication – a space of disrupted time and memory. . . . 93 . . .

Susan J. Drucker and Gary Gumpert

Conclusion Conflict in Cyprus reflects permanence and change amidst evolving generations, populations, attitudes, and opportunities to bridge the divide through participation and communication. This chapter has attempted to examine examples of such opportunities. Each of the three cases examined here – the media bridges, the Blue Bridge and the Eleftheria Square Bridge – had the potential to transform the communicative environment of their communities while also engaging the community members in the planning process, the resulting communication environment or the content of communication. Decisions about the Blue Bridge over the Green Line bypassed not only citizen participation in design but also municipal participation. The participatory process of Eleftheria Square is more complex: from the architects’ perspective, there has been participation and communication with the people of Nicosia, particularly via the municipality and the mayor (C. Passas, personal communication, 30 October 2015). Yet the perceived lack of citizen engagement may in no small part be part of the scepticism associated with the project, which was to have been a bridge to the future of the metropolis of Nicosia. These two bridges reflect the history of divided Nicosia, which seems to deal with aborted bridges or bridges that disconnect. Such troubled bridges may serve political purposes, but the people, if asked, would likely indicate whether or not they would use the bridges. The bridges examined here are either incomplete, defeated or dismissed as bridges to nowhere. As for the media bridges, this chapter has examined them as spaces of communication (Mitchell 2008). In this way, print and electronic media join the physical infrastructure as media essential to bridging conflict and offering new venues for participation across communities. The mainstream media in Cyprus seem to perpetuate the divide (Christophorou, Şahin and Pavlou 2010) by maintaining non-collaborative, non-participatory spaces of communication, but on the other hand, alternative and community media appear to involve community members in their management and content production, functioning as participatory spaces that bring people from the two communities together in physical space, and in communicative space by addressing topics, issues and memories that (re)unite people culturally and historically (Carpentier and Doudaki 2014; Carpentier 2015). Still, these media bridges are at times short-lived, usually small in scale and not highly visible, not reaching large Cypriot audiences. . . . 94 . . .

Bridge over Troubled . . .

In examining the three bridges of Cyprus, this study follows a tradition in which media ecologists have explored the co-evolution of mediated and built environments (Mattern 2004; Mitchell 1999). Each of the aforementioned bridges has the capacity to generate new spaces of communication. Eleftheria Square, the oldest of these bridges, is being transformed into a symbol and site of communication about the future. It is a public space filled with symbolic significance, history and memories, both personal and collective. The Blue Bridge was a temporary, vivid architectural statement aimed at overcoming divides within the realities of a militarily defined city. Diverse media bridges are communicative spaces that also symbolically speak to the role of interaction and information in spanning a physical and political separation. Each of these communicative spaces is furthermore associated with the memories of community. While each bridge involves some degree of innovation and destination, they all are linked, as communicative spaces, to personal and collective memory and to the (personal and collective) nostalgia of shared stories, memories and places of living together. Finally, they are all examples of both the potential and the limitations of communicative spaces, when it comes to bridging physical and symbolic divides.

SUSAN J. DRUCKER ( Juris Doctor, St. John’s University) is Professor of Journalism/Media Studies, School of Communication, Hofstra University. She is the author and editor of thirteen books and over one hundred articles and book chapters, including The Urban Communication Reader (vol. 1 and 2), Regulating Convergence, Voices in the Street: Gender, Media and Public Space and two editions of Real Law @ Virtual Space: The Regulation of Cyberspace, and Regulating Social Media: Legal and Ethical Considerations, co-authored with Gary Gumpert. She is currently completing Urban Communication Regulations: Communication Freedoms and Limits. Her work examines the relationship between media technology and human factors, particularly as viewed from a legal perspective. GARY GUMPERT (Ph.D, Wayne State University) is Emeritus Professor of Communication at Queens College of the City University of New York and President of the Urban Communication Foundation. His authored and edited books include Talking Tombstones and Other Tales of the Media Age, The Urban Communication Reader, and Regulating Convergence and Regulating Social Media: Legal and Ethical Considerations. He is a recipient of the Franklyn

. . . 95 . . .

Susan J. Drucker and Gary Gumpert

S. Haiman Award for distinguished scholarship in freedom of expression (NCA), the Louis Forsdale Award for Outstanding Educator in the Field of Media Ecology (MEA), and the Neil Postman Award for Career Achievement in Public Intellectual Activity.

Notes 1.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11.

12.

The Green Line of Cyprus is a border, or a buffer zone – what it is called depends very much upon the speaker’s involvement and perspective. It is a physical partition taking many forms and shapes: barbed wire, sandbags, decaying bullet-torn buildings, sentry observation points and mine fields. Its width runs from a few to several hundred metres. Cyprus, including the Turkish-controlled area, covers 9,251 km2, or 3,572 square miles. It ranks 168th in area among sovereign nations. http://www.pio.gov.cy/moi/pio/pio.nsf/mass_media_en/mass_media_en?OpenDoc ument http://www.kibris.net/kktc/ http://www.pio.gov.cy/moi/pio/pio.nsf/mass_media_en/mass_media_en?OpenDoc ument http://radiostationworld.com/locations/cyprus/radio_websites.asp http://www.cypruscommunitymedia.org/index.php?option=com_content&view= category&layout=blog&id=32&Itemid=34&lang=en http://www.35-33.com/media-collective/ http://mycyradio.eu/who-we-are/about-mycyradio/ In 2012 Internet usage reached 61.6 per cent of the population in the south and 58.2 per cent in the north (Milioni and Stylianou 2013). The same study found that 79.4 per cent of Internet users in the south and 72.9 per cent of users in the north use social media regularly. The Green Line at Ledra Street, at that point (looking north), consisted of five discrete sections: (1) the Greek-Cypriot wall of fortified sandbags and sentry points, (2) the buffer zone patrolled by UN personnel, (3) a road used by Turkish-Cypriot (or Turkish) troops, (4) a Turkish-Cypriot administrated area, and (5) the Turkish-Cypriot wall. The distance, at that point, between the nearest and farthest points is about 200 yards (188 metres). http://www.hellenicaworld.com/Cyprus/Geo/en/EleftheriaSquareNicosia.html.

References Aden, R.C. 1995. ‘Nostalgic Communication as Temporal Escape When It Was a Game’s Reconstruction of a Baseball/Work Community’, Western Journal of Communication 59: 20–38. Andreou, E. 2016. ‘Eleftheria Square Work Enters Final Stage, Ready by Mid-2017’, Cyprus Mail, 17 September. Retrieved 17 February 2017 from http://cyprus-mail.com/2016/09/17/ eleftheria-square-work-enters-final-stage-ready-mid-2017/. Bachelard, G. 1964. The Poetics of Space. Boston, MA: Beacon Press. . . . 96 . . .

Bridge over Troubled . . . Benjamin, W. 1999. The Arcades Project, trans. H. Eiland and K. McLaughlin. Cambridge: Harvard University Press Blair, C. 2006. ‘Communication as Collective Memory’, in G.J. Shepherd, J.S. John and T. Striphas (eds), Communication As Perspectives On Theory. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, pp. 51–59. Boym, S. 2001. The Future of Nostalgia. New York: Basic Books. Bryant, R. 2008. ‘Writing the Catastrophe: Nostalgia and Its Histories in Cyprus’, Journal of Modern Greek Studies 26(2): 399–422. ———. 2014. ‘Nostalgia and the Discovery of Loss’, in O. Ange and D. Berliner (eds), Anthropology and Nostalgia. New York: Berghahn Books, pp. 155–77. ‘Can Zaha help Cyprus?’ 2013. Stephen’s R.A.N.T. Blog, 25 March. Retrieved 19 August 2015 from https://stephensrant.wordpress.com/tag/eleftheria-square/. Carey, J.W. 1998. ‘The Internet and the End of the National Communication System: Uncertain Predictions of an Uncertain Future’, Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly 75(1): 28–34. Carpentier, N. 2015. ‘Articulating Participation and Agonism: A Case Study on the Agonistic Re-articulations of the Cyprus Problem in the Broadcasts of the Community Broadcaster MYCYradio’, The Cyprus Review 27(1): 129–53. Carpentier, N., and V. Doudaki. 2014. ‘Community Media for Reconciliation: A Cypriot Case Study’, Communication, Culture and Critique 7(4): 415–34. Charalambous, N., and C. Hadjichristos. 2009. ‘A Square or a Bridge? The Eleftheria Square Case’, Proceedings of the 7th International Space Syntax Symposium, Stockholm, 8–11 June 2009. Retrieved 12 December 2014 from http://www.sss7.org/Proceedings/06%20Urban %20Territoriality%20and%20Private%20and%20Public%20Space/013_Charalambous_ Hadjichristos.pdf. Christophorou, C., S. Şahin and S. Pavlou. 2010. Media Narratives, Politics and the Cyprus Problem. Nicosia: Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) Cyprus Centre. Collaborative Media Initiative (CMI). 2012. A Potential Untapped: Media Working Together across the Divide in Cyprus. Nicosia: United Nations Development Programme. ‘Eleftheria Square Moving Ahead Confirms Nicosia Mayor’. 2015. Cyprus Traveller, 17 June. Retrieved 20 August 2015 from http://cyprustraveller.com/eleftheria-squaremoving-ahead-confirms-nicosia-mayor/. Evripidou, S. 2008. ‘Hadid Defends Controversial Eleftheria Square Plan’, Cyprus Mail, 29 November. Retrieved 20 August 2015 from https://www.thefreelibrary.com/Hadid +defends+controversial+Eleftheria+Square+plans.-a0189852211. Gehl, J. 1997. Life Between Buildings: Using Public Space. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold. Gumpert, G., and S. Drucker. 2003. ‘The Radio Village of Potamia’, Greek News, 14 October. Retrieved 19 August 2015 from http://www.greeknewsonline.com/the-radio-villageof-potamia-cyprus/. ———. 2006. ‘The Blue Bridge on the Green Line’, Greek News, 19 June. Retrieved 19 August 2015 from http://www.greeknewsonline.com/the-blue-bridge-on-the-green-line/. Huyssen, A. 1995. Twilight Memories: Marking Time in a Culture of Amnesia. New York: Routledge. Jansen, M. 2007. ‘Turkish-Cypriots Start to Dismantle Nicosia Bridge’, The Irish Times, 10 January. Retrieved 20 August 2015 from http://www.irishtimes.com/news/turkishcypriots-start-to-dismantle-nicosia-bridge-1.1192098. Kinzer, S. 1998. ‘New Rumblings in Cyprus Raise Specter of War’, New York Times, 30 April. Retreived 20 January 2016 from http://www.nytimes.com/1998/04/30/world/new-rum blings-in-cyprus-raise-specter-of-war.html. Lefebvre, H. 1991. The Production of Space, trans. D. Nicholson-Smith. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell. Levent, S. 2015. ‘Love the Ottoman’, Politis, 3 November. Retrieved 20 December 2015 from http://www.politis-news.com/cgibin/hweb?-A=306062&-V=stiles (in Greek). Lum, C.M.K. 2000. ‘Introduction: The Intellectual Roots of Media Ecology’, New Jersey Journal of Communication 8(1): 1–7. Mattern, S. 2004. ‘This Didn’t Kill That: Architectural History Through Media Ecology’, College Art Association Conference, Seattle, Washington, 18–21 February 2004. Retrieved 25 Feb. . . 97 . . .

Susan J. Drucker and Gary Gumpert ruary 2017 from http://www.wordsinspace.net/shannon/wp-content/uploads/2010/05/ Mattern_CAAPresentation_2004.pdf. McLuhan, M. 1964. Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. New York: McGraw Hill. Milioni, D.L., and S. Stylianou. 2013. The Internet in Cyprus 2012. Limassol: Cyprus University of Technology. Retrieved 23 September 2015 from http://ktisis.cut.ac.cy/jspui/bit stream/10488/3390/1/WIP_CY_2012_Final_Report.pdf. Mitchell, W.J.T. 1999. e-topia: ‘Urban Life, Jim – But Not as We Know It’. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. ———. 2008. ‘Addressing Media’, MediaTropes eJournal 1(1): 1–18. Retrieved 20 November 2014 from http://www.mediatropes.com/index.php/Mediatropes/article/view/1771/ 1482. Mumford, L. 1966. The Culture of Cities. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich. Nystrom, C. 1973. ‘Towards a Science of Media Ecology: The Formulation of Integrated Conceptual Paradigms for the Study of Human Communication Systems’, unpublished PhD dissertation. New York: New York University. Papadakis, Y. 2006. ‘Nicosia after 1960: A River, a Bridge and a Dead Zone’, Global Media Journal: Mediterranean Edition 1(1): 1–16. ‘Projects Worth €174 Million Announced for Nicosia’. 2015. Cyprus Mail, 18 June. Retrieved 20 August 2015 from http://cyprus-mail.com/2015/06/18/projects-worth-e174million-announced-for-nicosia/. Psillides, C. 2015. ‘Akinci: Practical Steps towards a Solution’, Cyprus Mail, 20 April. Retrieved 22 May 2015 from http://cyprus-mail.com/2015/04/20/akinci-practical-stepstowards-a-solution/. Said, E.W. 2000. ‘Invention, Memory and Place’, Critical Inquiry 26(2): 175–19. Scolari, C.A. 2012. ‘Media Ecology: Exploring the Metaphor to Expand the Theory’, Communication Theory 22: 204–25. Shapiro, M.J. 2010. The Time of the City: Politics, Philosophy and Genre. London: Routledge. Smith, H. 2015. ‘Divided Cyprus Begins to Build Bridges’, The Guardian, 1 June. Retrieved 3 August 2015 from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/may/31/mustafa-ankinciadvocates-focus-future-for-splintered-cyprus. Soja, E.W. 1996. Thirdspace: Journeys to Los Angeles and Other Real-and-Imagined Places. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Strate, L. 2008. ‘Studying Media as Media: McLuhan and the Media Ecological Approach’, MediaTropes eJournal 1(1): 127–42. Retrieved 20 November 2014 from http://www.medi atropes.com/index.php/Mediatropes/article/view/3344/1488. ———. 2014. Amazing Ourselves to Death: Neil Postman’s Brave New World Revisited. New York: Peter Lang. Tarquinio, J.A. 2005. ‘“We” Tries to Unite Cyprus on the News’, International Herald Tribune, 29 August. Retrieved 20 September 2015 from http://www.fredonia.edu/department/ communication/schwalbe/cyprustv.htm. Terzis, G. 2007. European Media Governance: National and Regional Dimensions. Bristol: Intellect. Thomas, D. 2009. ‘Back to the Drawing Board for Eleftheria Square’, Cyprus Mail, 4 June. Retrieved 13 January 2015 from http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-201063605.html. Tuan, Y. 1977. Space and Place: The Perspective of Experience. Minneapolis: University Of Minnesota Press. UNESCO. 2013. The Media Landscape in 54 Countries. Retrieved 17 August 2015 from http:// www.uis.unesco.org/Communication/Documents/Media-statistics-pilot-survey-countryprofiles.pdf. Voniati, C., V. Doudaki, and N. Carpentier. In review. ‘Mapping Community Media Organisations: A Methodological Reflection’, Journal of Alternative and Community Media.

. . . 98 . . .

F

Chapter 4

INANCIAL CRISIS, AUSTERITY

AND PUBLIC SERVICE MEDIA IN CYPRUS Reforming or Downsizing? An Analysis of Discourses and Critiques

Lia-Paschalia Spyridou and Dimitra L. Milioni

Introduction In most West European countries, public service media are in a state of flux and regularly face copious criticisms of shortcomings ranging from inefficiency and disconnection (Soroka et al. 2012) to adoption of a commercial approach (Tambini 2015) and susceptibility to political manipulation. An upsurge in criticism and scrutiny, aggravated by a sustained period of economic distress, has fuelled the debate over the role, remit and funding of public service media (Spyridou and Milioni 2014). The debate has intensified in countries that were severely hit by the financial crisis and thus forced to implement harsh austerity policies, creating a particularly uncomfortable situation for public service media. The financial crisis in Cyprus began in 2009 as the economy went into recession and culminated in 2013 with the EU (European Union)-IMF (International Monetary Fund) deal and the ensuing austerity programme, resulting in shrinkage of the public sector and the welfare state, including the public service broadcaster (Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation, CyBC). But even before the onset of the financial crisis, CyBC suffered from perennial defects and weaknesses associated with enduring, problematic elements of the country’s sociopolitical structure and culture. This chapter examines the impact of the financial crisis on CyBC, Cyprus’s public broadcaster, drawing mainly on the discourses of public media professionals themselves. This approach is based on a conceptualization of the current financial crisis as a critical juncture, namely a period ‘in which

Lia-Paschalia Spyridou and Dimitra L. Milioni

dramatic changes are debated and enacted drawing from a broad palette of options’ (McChesney 2013: 66–67) that can lead to new paths. The notion of the critical juncture includes the idea of multiple possibilities and outcomes due to different decisions and practices. This study ponders the future of the Cypriot public broadcaster CyBC under the impact of the current neoliberal climate. To do so, it attempts to identify critiques related to the crisis of CyBC. Such critiques, emerging organically from within CyBC and the public, can provide useful insights into the factors hindering CyBC’s attempt to develop an authentic public service profile, and suggest possible alternatives towards this direction. The study concludes with a critical discussion of these discourses vis-à-vis their potential to generate substantial forms of journalistic agency that could contain the seeds of change from within the journalistic field and contribute to CyBC’s remit and sustainability.

Public Service Media in Crisis The contemporary crisis of public service media unfolds amidst economic, technological and social challenges that affect the media system in general (Picard 2014). The neoliberal turn in global capitalism has signalled a serious retreat from the active public sector in favour of the private domain (McChesney 2013). The prevailing market ideology and its doctrines have not left public service media unaffected (Mancini 2014). According to the neoliberal approach, the law of supply and demand will ultimately ensure the provision of products and services needed to satisfy social needs. In that sense, public financial support is considered unnecessary, at least in its current form. Public service media should be narrowed to services traditionally associated with its distinct role, offering only commercially unrewarding content that by default private media would not provide ( Jakubowicz 2007). Although this view has not been adopted in practice, it has greatly affected allocation of funds to public service media. Between 2007 and 2012 the value of public service media funding in the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) region decreased by 9.8 per cent in real terms (adjusted for inflation) (EBU 2014). At the same time the entire media industry is undergoing an economic crisis (Picard 2014). Digitally based communications have seriously disrupted the efficiency of the advertising and subscriptions model (Franklin 2012), while the so-called infomediaries capture a significant part of the advertising and marketing revenue of the online news sector (Smyrnaios 2012; Pew Research Center 2015). Amid growing economic uncertainty, media . . . 100 . . .

Financial Crisis, Austerity and Public Service Media

organizations have experimented with convergence strategies (Klinenberg 2005) that can efficiently promote economic sustainability; yet they tend to encourage hyper-commercialization, as well as intensification and flexibilization of labour, to the detriment of quality journalism (Spyridou and Veglis 2016). Convergence seriously challenges the potential of public service media because political and regulatory constraints or slow adoption of new(er) media make them less able to respond, even as they see their audiences dwindle (Tambini 2015). Lastly, the operation of public service media is challenged by profound social changes predicated upon three main pillars: the fragmentation of the ‘former audience’ across (digital) media (Webster and Ksiazek 2012); growing individualization and the erosion of traditional social identities and bonds (Dahlgren 2001), which generates more fluid and plural taste communities with diverse media needs (Thompson 2014); and a pervasive ‘participatory’ culture that is driven by social media and emphasizes self-expression and civic engagement ( Jenkins 2006). These developments tend to have significant, mostly adverse ramifications for public service media, which by default target a generalist public, associated with traditional forms of political and cultural citizenship, that may not be dominant anymore. Within this burgeoning digital market, the decreasing salience of public service media has been repeatedly narrated through neoliberal policy discourses, often with eager support from vested interests in the commercial media sector (Thompson 2014), furthering a declinist narrative about public service media (Hanretty 2012). But even though public service media are hard-pressed to fully honour their ‘pact’ with society, there is substantial evidence that they contribute to enhancement of content quality and diversity (Trappel 2008), increased political knowledge (Holtz-Bacha and Norris 2001; Soroka et al. 2012) and political engagement (Baek 2009), higher editorial standards in journalism (Cushion 2012) and enhanced public deliberation (Iosifidis 2014). Of course, not all public service media perform the same way. Disparities in reach (share), funding and most notably editorial independence tend to influence their role and remit.

The Financial Crisis in Cyprus and Its Effects on Public Broadcasting: Redefining ‘Publicness’ under Austerity Until 2007 the Cypriot economy was thriving, despite its overdeveloped and extensively mismanaged banking sector. Between 2008 and 2010, the Cypriot government attempted to absorb the domino effect of the global fi. . . 101 . . .

Lia-Paschalia Spyridou and Dimitra L. Milioni

nancial crisis by aiming to increase public revenues; however this approach proved unsuccessful due to revenue drops in the tourism and shipping sectors and decreased real estate activity (Ioannou and Emilianidis 2013). The Cypriot economy went into recession in 20091 when the economy shrank by 1.9 billion per and unemployment rose to 6.46 in December 2009 (from 3.76 in December 2007) per cent.2 A major explosion at a naval base in July 2011 caused financial damage estimated at 1.2 percent of the country’s GDP in 2011 and 2.2 percent of the GDP in 2012 ,3 shaking the economy further. Major credit rating houses downgraded Cyprus’s creditworthiness. In 2012 Cypriot banks, highly exposed to the Greek debt, were particularly affected by the write-downs in the Greek Private Sector Involvement4 (Demetriou 2015). In March 2013, the newly elected Cypriot government agreed to an EU-IMF bailout arrangement that involved a ‘haircut’ of all deposits above €100,000 in the Bank of Cyprus, and to the shutdown of Laiki Bank, the second largest bank on the island. The deal also included a set of austerity measures including cuts in civil service salaries, social benefits, allowances and pensions; privatizations; and increases in VAT (value added tax), taxes and public healthcare charges. The neoliberal reforms that were (and are still being) implemented in Cyprus have resulted in growing unemployment and poverty rates, a rise in atypical and precarious forms of employment, and the shrinking of the public sector and welfare state, especially welfare benefits for low-income pensioners and access to healthcare (Demetriou 2015). The public broadcasting sector is no exception. Since 2000, CyBC5 has been funded directly by the state budget, and all revenue from advertising is deducted from the fixed amount defined by the Parliament every year (Spyridou and Milioni 2014). In 2014, a year after the EU-IMF deal, the Ministry of Internal Affairs ordered a consulting report from PricewaterhouseCoopers, which proposed a three-stage plan to restructure and ‘modernize’ CyBC with lay-offs and early retirement schemes, salary cuts, performance indices for productivity, project management, claim to a bigger share of the advertising pie, expansion and the organization’s active involvement in new media (PricewaterhouseCoopers 2014). The proposed strategy operated as a mechanism to legitimate the ongoing policy of downsizing CyBC amidst the larger austerity policies implemented in the country. In fact, in the period 2010–2015, CyBC’s budget was reduced by 45 per cent (from 52.2 million euros in 2010 to 28.8 million euros in 2015) and its personnel by 26 per cent,6 with more lay-offs announced for 2015.7 These policies are sanctioned by a political discourse that blames public expenditure for the problems in the public broadcaster and the public . . . 102 . . .

Financial Crisis, Austerity and Public Service Media

sector in general. A steady stream of news articles in the Cypriot media, usually voicing politicians’ opinions, works to discredit CyBC by depicting it as a meritocracy-deficient reign rife with exorbitant salaries paid to underqualified staff, nepotism in hiring policies, mismanagement scandals and general waste of public funds. Evoking social justice rhetoric, this discourse puts forth the claim that the public sector, and CyBC in particular, should bear the consequences of the financial crisis as much as the private sector and society in general.8 The idea that a minimal state can correct all economic and political malaise is not particularly new or unique to the Cypriot case. Preston and Silke (2014: 16) show how the mainstream Irish media carried an ‘outright and sustained attack on the public sector and on public sector workers’, putting the blame for the crisis on an overstaffed public-sector workforce to pave the way for strict austerity. The funding model of the Cypriot public broadcaster solidifies its direct dependence on the state (and the parliamentary political parties) and severely limits its autonomy. However, CyBC’s lack of administrative and journalistic autonomy preceded the financial crisis and is rooted in the overall structure of the Cypriot communication system and the political culture of the country. Although Cyprus was not included in the seminal comparative analysis by Hallin and Mancini (2004), it seems to be a rather distinctive case of the Mediterranean or polarized pluralism model (Milioni, Spyridou and Koumis in press), in which high levels of political parallelism and strong ties between media owners, journalists and political elites combine with a lack of investigative journalism, dependence on official sources and a dearth of independent journalistic work (Sophocleous 2008). Political parallelism is particularly evident in the governance structure of CyBC, as it operates under the jurisdiction of the Minister of Interior, who has the authority to give directions of a general character regarding its performance; also, the minister ‘may, at any time, dismiss the Chairperson or any other member without giving a reason for this’, as stated in the relevant Law (The Law about CyBC, 2010). The Council of Ministers appoints the chairperson and vice-chairperson, and seven more members of the management board, for a mandate of three years. The proposed policies for restructuring CyBC do not seem to aim at curbing political interventionism. Taking into account that the established political system in this crisis-stricken country has suffered a serious blow in terms of citizens’ trust in it (Charalambous 2014), a public broadcaster constantly dependent on political parties’ support for its survival can better serve their needs as a platform for advocating their political programmes to gain public legitimacy (see Ker-Lindsay 2006: 30–31). . . . 103 . . .

Lia-Paschalia Spyridou and Dimitra L. Milioni

Political parallelism should be considered in parallel with the long history of clientelism that pervades Cypriot society despite being publicly condemned by politicians and citizens alike (Katsourides 2013: 90), lack of political accountability and a sense of impunity among public officials (Ker-Lindsay 2006: 29–30). According to Faustmann (2010), the deeply rooted clientelistic patterns and structures in Cyprus have produced entrenched, oversized, privileged public and semi-governmental sectors. As part of this sector, CyBC is haunted by various problems stemming from its bureaucratization and its many organizational weaknesses – besides the long-standing political interventionism. Though it is hard to deny that CyBC is in need of urgent reform, the current government policies, driven by neoliberal principles centred on budget cuts, seem inadequate to address these problems. On the contrary, they tend to work synergistically with political interventionism to exacerbate political control over the public broadcaster and diminish its autonomy.

Study Rationale and Method Although the media ‘crisis’ has become a popular theme in communication studies, little attention has been paid to how media professionals themselves perceive it and what they are suggesting in order to cope with it (Siapera, Papadopoulou and Archontakis 2014). The present analysis, following Siapera, Papadopoulou and Archontakis (2014), conceptualizes the crisis as part of a broader historical critical juncture in the field of the media. Critical junctures constitute brief periods of time when structures are questioned, and institutions are about to make decisions and adopt policies that will mark the course of things in the future (McChesney 2013). This line of inquiry allows us to approach the media as a site of struggle and acknowledge the significance of critiques emerging from media practitioners themselves that can provide alternative viewpoints and versions of possible futures for the media. This study explores the critiques of the perennial and emerging problems of CyBC as expressed by media practitioners of the Cypriot public broadcaster. Critiques are operationalized ‘as explanations of the problem(s), reasons for the current crisis, and proposed or implemented changes that would improve the situation’ (Siapera, Papadopoulou and Archontakis 2014: 4). The findings are based primarily on empirical material collected through twelve in-depth interviews with managers and journalists working at CyBC.9 The study also uses secondary data based on (a) the results of the . . . 104 . . .

Financial Crisis, Austerity and Public Service Media

public deliberation campaign ‘The CyBC We Want’,10 launched in 2014, as processed by the special committee of CyBC;11 (b) official documents regarding the operation of CyBC; and (c) material from newspapers. The study followed a thematic analysis research based on ‘careful reading and re-reading of the data’ (Rice and Ezzy 1999: 258) in order to systematically recognize emerging themes, viewpoints and versions of events and developments. Then recurring ideas and discourses were grouped together and used to compile three main critiques of the crisis.

Analysis: Critiques from within the Journalistic Field Based on the selected data, in the following section we lay out three critiques that emerged from media professionals’ discourses, combined with observations made by members of the public and other secondary data. These themes refer to accounts and interpretations of the crisis of CyBC based on concrete experiences, together with recommendations and possible solutions to this crisis. These critiques are presented as they emerged through the media professionals’ perspective. A critical discussion of these perspectives takes place in the conclusions.

The Critique of Political Interventionism The perennially recurring critique of political interventionism is distinctive of the Cypriot broadcaster and encountered in several other countries as well (Bardoel and d’Haenens 2008). However, in the case of Cyprus political interventionism takes multiple forms affecting core operations of the institution – the funding scheme, the news content and the management style of the broadcaster – resulting in what one might call ‘political thraldom’. At the core of this critique is CyBC’s economic dependence on the parliament. Until 2000, CyBC was funded through a contributory fee embedded in electricity bills. Since 2000 CyBC has received a state subsidy amounting to approximately 80 per cent of its budget; the remaining 20 per cent is derived from advertising and other sources of revenue, for instance EU programmes. This situation is not deemed beneficial to CyBC’s independence: ‘This [change] resulted in losing our independence. Now we depend on the state, we depend on each MP individually, and we depend on every petty politician, who will vote against our budget if /s/he doesn’t appear on TV whenever s/he wants’ (G.M.). The state subsidy comprises a pressure mechanism to secure the systematic and controlled presence of politicians and political parties on the . . . 105 . . .

Lia-Paschalia Spyridou and Dimitra L. Milioni

public broadcaster. This leads to a tendency to rely on ‘protocol news’ (Broughton Micova 2012) that emphasizes official state sources, events and announcements. There is a serious problem in the news bulletin structure, which by default is the main informational programme. CyBC’s news bulletin is not about information and events, it is about politics. It announces the positions of the political parties. (T.T.) We are seriously repressed by the political parties. For example, a small party of two per cent may make five different announcements in one day and demands that they all be covered. … Having eight political parties every day, plus the Church and the other institutions, at the end of the day you have no energy, no time and no resources to produce something more interesting, and certainly more constructive. (S.H.)

According to the interviewees, the parliament has secured editorial manipulation in favour of the political system by enacting a law endorsed by all political parties that lays out in detail the extent and manner of exposure each political party is entitled to (G.T.). Political interventionism also takes place via the appointment of personnel to key positions and the management board, a practice that has proven especially problematic in three ways. First, CyBC has been used to hire people in the public sector, following the tenets of a pervasive clientelistic political culture (G.T., T.T) and thereby distorting the allocation of human and financial resources. Some departments, most notably administrative ones, are overstaffed, while central production departments are under-resourced (S.H.). Second, the interviewees feel that the management board lacks the vision and knowledge needed to chart a coherent and independent strategy for CyBC. Not only are its members deficient in the expertise required in their position; they also tend to serve vested interests and often engage in unproductive, protracted disputes that in turn exacerbate existing conflict and dysfunctionality (T.T.). Finally, political interventionism has often resulted in protectionism among personnel affiliated to the party system. A number of interviewees referred to one quite striking case concerning the annual salary of a TV presenter, an amount exceeding €80,000. Repeated efforts to reduce it – at a time of repeated salary cuts in the wider public sector, including CyBC – failed (S.H., T.T, G.T.). The critique of political interventionism clearly reflects a conflict between the political system (the parties) and the institution of public service media. A deep-rooted culture of inclusive clientelism has sustained the hegemonic role of the strong political parties (Christoforou 2006), which is at odds with the broadcaster’s public service mandate of independence, transparency and accountability. This pervasive trait of political interventionism . . . 106 . . .

Financial Crisis, Austerity and Public Service Media

not only reduces CyBC’s capacity to enhance, develop and serve social and political citizenship, but also often operates as a manipulation tool in the hands of politicians. The financial crisis has exacerbated the situation. Within a climate of general economic hardship, public spending has been incriminated as the ‘root of all evil’. The established political system is struggling to sustain its social relevance and increasingly faces disappointed and alienated citizens. CyBC is caught in the middle of this turmoil. On the one hand, the limited state subsidy is allocated as an exchange in even more interventionism. On the other hand, the image of CyBC as part of a corrupt, inefficient public sector facilitates its exploitation through political contestation among opposing parties. These developments have resulted in increased incidents of self-censorship: ‘We self-censor to avoid being censored. … Some owe favours, others are afraid, others simply want to avoid conflicts’ (E.M.). At the same time, citizens have become less tolerant. According to the results of the public deliberation campaign ‘The CyBC We Want’, citizens criticize CyBC for being politically manipulated and reprove the public broadcaster for offering an ‘overdose’ of news about politicians and the political parties at the expense of unbiased and impartial news of more general interest. This bleak picture leaves little room for hope. Yet within this critique, a way out of the problem emerges clearly. CyBC needs to obtain economic and operational autonomy (G.M., S.H., T.T.), which in turn will impel its professional culture towards a more independent and civic-oriented modus operandi (G.T, E.S.). CyBC personnel see an almost obvious path to independence: changing the financing model so that CyBC has a stable source of revenue will increase its capacity to resist political pressures. The state subsidy should be defined as a percentage of the GDP. EBU defines it at 0.21 per cent. This model is very good. First, funding levels are objectively in step with the economy. Second, knowing your budget, you can plan and prepare for the next 3–5 years. It is April and we still haven’t been informed of the level of the subsidy [for the current year]. This simply means that we cannot make any plans. (G.M.)

Interviewees see this policy suggestion as fairly clear but hard to implement. All participants expressed pessimism about the possibility of change, given that political parties are unwilling to relinquish control. Such pessimism is easily explained: the people designated as responsible for solving the problem are CyBC executives and political power-holders. At the same time, journalists express feelings of inadequacy in terms of their efficacy and meaningful agency, and thus tend to exempt themselves from the responsibility to actively resist. So as long as the game lies in the hands of . . . 107 . . .

Lia-Paschalia Spyridou and Dimitra L. Milioni

those who have traditionally shaped the fate of the public broadcaster, expectations for change are very limited.

The Critique of Poor Organization and Mismanagement This critique focuses on the multiple problems of CyBC on the organizational, managerial and strategic levels. CyBC is described as a miniature of the wider public sector and the wider Cypriot society characterized by inefficiency, political favouritism, dissipation of public money, and a resulting misperception of the public service by the institutions themselves. In the exact words of an interviewee, ‘this is the disease of the entire public sector and CyBC has also been infected’ (T.T.). A major aspect of this critique is the lack of strategic vision for the public broadcaster. This deficit has been symptomatic of what Picard (2002: 2) has named the ‘permanency myth’: all parties involved ignored the risks of excesses, mismanagement and political favours to the detriment of CyBC’s appeal, legitimacy and sustainability, assuming that public institutions are indestructible and immune to the challenges facing ordinary enterprises. This pervasive misconception contributed to the establishment of the problematic structures and practices that have proven so intractable: ‘Our major problem is structures. Today’s needs cannot be satisfied by the current organizational chart. It is outdated. It was designed decades ago. There are departments that do not produce anything, and we don’t need them anyway, and we don’t have other departments, of vital importance’ (Y.I.). The organization’s insufficient and outdated structure has produced major distortions in resource allocation and staff hiring. Although in numerical terms CyBC is considered overstaffed (with 387 staff members, according to information given by the staff), in practice the most central departments fall short of both staff and expertise (E.S., S.H., K.T., E.M.). It is argued that we are overstaffed. … But we all know that in the public sector about 10 to 15 per cent of the personnel are totally useless; either they find excuses to not show up or they simply do not care. About 20 to 40 per cent contribute averagely. They just do their job, carry through with their tasks, but they won’t take initiatives, they are not active. … In short, the number of people is not proportional to the work that has to be done. (S.H.)

The interviewees consider this development a natural consequence of political hiring. Inevitably, overstaffing practices and unreasonable hiring have ramifications for overall performance and the image of the broadcaster (T.T., K.C., K.T.). . . . 108 . . .

Financial Crisis, Austerity and Public Service Media

At the end of the day you have almost twice the personnel you need. In order for these people to justify their presence, work tasks are split and shared, so every employee offers 60 per cent of what he/she should offer. … This practice is to the detriment not only of CyBC but of society as a whole. Instead of having job openings for which qualified people can compete, people are promoted on the basis of ‘other’ criteria. (E.S.)

Furthermore, distorted employment practices contribute to feelings of inequality and dissatisfaction, since not all these people can be hired on a permanent basis. CyBC currently has three types of employment status (T.T., E.M., S.H.): employees on a permanent basis, others with open-ended contracts, and hourly employees. Under this system, two people with the exact same job description may have different salaries and employment rights. Also, journalists’ salaries are typically much lower than those of administrative staff (E.M., K.T.). Another aspect of this critique concerns high-level managers’ attempts to safeguard and reproduce the existing rigid, conservative organizational culture by eliminating perceived ‘threats’, most notably those relating to new media. In September 2013 the management board issued a directive forbidding the use of social networks during work hours; in response to journalists’ intense objections, however, it then changed the directive to allow limited access to journalists. Eventually they came up with the idea of time filters. After forty minutes the system kicks you out. The other day I was following Twitter for my story on Syria to avoid using material solely from news agencies. So I had to log in again and again, and it takes time to reconnect and figure out where exactly you were before. (E.M.)

In 2014 CyBC collaborated with the Cyprus University of Technology to create a participatory journalism platform.12 After its four-month pilot run ended, CyBC decided not to make use of the platform, citing a shortage of journalistic personnel. That is, instead of exploring the possibilities offered by the platform to open up and develop closer relations with citizens (especially young people), CyBC’s management decided to drop the project, seeing it as a ‘burden’ rather than an opportunity to re-engage with society. A tendency to disregard the importance of online journalism is an inherent problem at CyBC. For instance, the organization’s website stopped its operation in July 2013 after the radio journalists who voluntarily sustained it refused to continue doing it without being paid for it.13 These practices demonstrate the public broadcaster’s adherence to an industrial paradigm characterized by undiversified production and a management style based on hierarchical and closed structures, versus the . . . 109 . . .

Lia-Paschalia Spyridou and Dimitra L. Milioni

post-industrial paradigm typified by emerging technologies, interaction and the increasing redistribution of power along with a ‘blending’ of professional production and ‘prosumer’ activity ( Jackson 2013), which provides public service broadcasting institutions with new opportunities to meet their commitments to the public by giving voice to the people and maintaining their relevance in national media systems (Enli 2008; van Dijck and Poell 2015). Citizens also echoed this need in the Public Deliberation Campaign: ‘People should be asked and given the opportunity to speak out. They should be given the opportunity to ask questions to the politicians directly regarding various topics. CyBC is for the people, not politicians.’14 Overall, this critique is associated with a mismanaged organization driven by the old model of (public-state) media, which exacerbates perennial organizational weaknesses and leads to various intra-organizational conflicts: management vs. journalism professionals; privileged employees vs. less privileged employees; skilled and motivated employees vs. unskilled and inactive employees; TV (the most powerful one department) vs. the other departments; traditional perceptions of doing journalism vs. post-industrial ideas. This critique targets core values and ideas of CyBC’s operation and philosophy, expressing at the same time the deep anxiety of interviewees who see a major transformation of CyBC as its last chance: ‘CyBC has systematically avoided making some difficult decisions. But this model has reached its end. … Either we change, or we die’ (G.T.). Inherent in this critique is the urgent need for CyBC to adopt strategies based on meritocracy, efficiency, productivity, accountability, innovation, openness and inclusiveness. However, the company’s heritage affects its mindset, internal culture and strategies, making changes and reforms hard to implement (Picard 2002). I am not optimistic at all [that things can change]. … You bring one or two people – as you cannot bring more – young, talented, with ideas. Soon they are part of the team. You need to bring in a lot of new people. … But we cannot hire new people, we cannot change the facts, so I am not optimistic about the future. (S.H.)

The Critique of Austerity The critique of austerity posits that the main source of CyBC’s problems is the successive reduction of the state subsidy. Besides budget reduction, this critique also targets the ways cuts have been implemented. To avoid lay-offs, CyBC imposed severe cuts to programming and salaries that left . . . 110 . . .

Financial Crisis, Austerity and Public Service Media

the broadcaster with minimal resources with which to produce and buy content, a situation reflected in both the quality and the diversity of the content offered. ‘There is a clear turn towards cheap and easy programming, which means we have a studio, we put in a presenter and a guest, they talk and then we have a 45-minute programme. Such production standards are incomprehensible’ (G.T.). Repeating programmes and screening old TV series are common ways to fill gaps. Interviewees are adamant about the consequences of these practices: The public deliberation campaign showed that viewers have freaked out with some programmes and costume drama series that are screened during the last years; they don’t want silly programmes that underestimate their aesthetics and intelligence. (Y.I.) [This is] a clear divergence from the role of public television, as defined by the Law in Cyprus. Public television must cater for minorities, must serve all citizens, must maintain specific diversity and quality levels. This economic hardship has afflicted programming to a large extent. (T.T.)

A second aspect of this critique involves the deepening of economic inequalities within the organization. The austerity programme implemented by the government included severe cuts to permanent employees’ salaries, while the temporary staff (mostly journalists and technicians involved in content production) suffered ever greater cuts due to the drastic curtailment of the overtime and time shift budget. The reduction of the shift budget means fewer shifts every day, burdening employees with extra work, which in turn affects the quality of their work. Where is investigative journalism? When you have three topics to prepare every day, and then package them for radio, for the news bulletin and for the morning show, the time is very limited. … Investigative journalism needs time, and at the end of the day you might not have a story. This is a luxury we cannot afford at this period. (E.M.)

Unsurprisingly, the regime of uneven cuts and extra workload has fostered conditions of job dissatisfaction, job insecurity and lack of motivation, confirming recent evidence that a culture of job insecurity tends to limit changes and innovation in journalism (Spyridou et al. 2013; Ekdale et al. 2015). [Salary cuts] have had a negative impact on the standard of living of employees. They feel awkward, they have a sense of failure and this affects their work. And it tends to become worse because of widespread insecurity nurtured by a constant impression that there will be more cuts, even redundancies. (P.P.)

. . . 111 . . .

Lia-Paschalia Spyridou and Dimitra L. Milioni

The austerity critique articulates a domain of conflict between CyBC and the state, as the latter is critiqued both as a neoliberal state that imposes harsh austerity measures indiscriminately, and as a populist state that fails to make the correct, ‘painful’ decisions needed to safeguard the output of the public broadcaster and the rights of skilled and motivated employees. The implementation of extensive austerity so threatens the very existence of CyBC that it raises suspicions that the public broadcaster has been intentionally downsized. As the state subsidy shrinks dramatically, the organization cannot perform its role and remit, which in turn fuels new rounds of criticism against it. Detractors of public service media have seized on the economic crisis as an opportunity to restrict their development, especially in regard to new media (Brevini 2013). Economically drained and thus unable to sustain its role and distinctiveness, CyBC finds itself doomed to watch its appeal and legitimacy as a public institution diminish further. This critique incorporates a common discourse claiming that in Europe the private sector, in its attempt to attack public service media, has found an ally in governments situated to the right of the political spectrum (Ferrell Lowe and Steemers 2012). CyBC has been systematically attacked ever since private broadcasters appeared. … What they want is to shrink CyBC – since they cannot close it down – to the point that it is not competitive any more. Because if CyBC stops being a player in the market, its role will be abolished. And this is bad because CyBC is a reference point for both owners and employees. When an employee says I am a journalist and at CyBC this is the salary I would get, how much less can he get in the private sector? There is always a comparison and CyBC still keeps the standards high. (S.H.)

Within this critique, the exit from the crisis involves, first, a state subsidy sufficient for CyBC to improve its performance, regain competitiveness and claim a bigger part of the advertising pie; and second, a drastic restructuring of its organizational model. This aspect of the critique blames the political system (which controls the management) for adopting populist policies detrimental to efficiency and sustainability. The main idea here is that drastic reforms should be implemented at the structural and organizational level – above all, assessment of employees and the laying off of the unskilled and redundant. This would enable CyBC to invest in programming and avoid the extensive horizontal cuts that demotivate the staff and negatively impact on the final output. The crucial challenge for CyBC is to have 200–250 employees from 387 that it employs today. We do not have the money to pay for more. I don’t like 100 people losing their jobs, but I see no other definition of restructuring. (Y.I.) . . . 112 . . .

Financial Crisis, Austerity and Public Service Media

These are tough times. But you cannot carry on with mistakes of the past, for which I and others are not responsible. … So you need to make changes. And if a radio station must close down, then it should. And people should get assessed for what they can do and what they offer. This is professionalism. Not horizontal cuts. Personally I can’t accept this. There is something called professional value. (K.T.)

Conclusions The financial crisis in Cyprus and the austerity policies implemented as a result of the EU-IMF deal have already had serious social repercussions (see Demetriou 2015). Policies meant to shrink the public sector, driven by the ‘minimal state’ ideal, have had substantial impact on public service media. In the last five years, the public broadcaster’s state budget has been reduced to barely half its prior level. CyBC struggles to cover essential operating costs and maintain a decent level of quality production with reduced staff. Meanwhile a deprecatory rhetoric stemming from politicians and commercial media alike depicts CyBC as a site of decades of clientelistic practices and wasted public funds that needs to be radically restructured, mainly through the mechanism of austerity. But this strategy does not seem to be able to restrict political interventionism, the main source of CyBC’s lack of legitimacy. Rather, in the Cypriot political context, neoliberal policies tend to work synergistically with political interventionism to strengthen political control over the public broadcaster and curtail editorial autonomy. This calls attention to the importance of taking into account contextual factors grounded in local realities that shape public service media, in order to fully understand the nature of the crisis they are undergoing. As Nowak (2014: 6) argues, public service media ‘are above all a product of history, culture and politics within their specific countries’. Despite criticisms that question the concept of a ‘national media system’ as a valid analytical tool in an era of media globalization and technological convergence, national states remain critical actors because they largely shape the central dynamics of media policies and practices (Flew and Waisbord 2015). These considerations emerge quite lucidly in the critiques articulated by both media professionals at CyBC and the general public. These critiques are used as explanations, ideas and practices for both comprehending and exiting the crisis. According to the interviewees, the first critique sees CyBC as especially vulnerable to political interventionism, mainly because of its existing funding model, but also because of its institutional dependency on the governing elites. To overcome this problem, CyBC needs to increase its . . . 113 . . .

Lia-Paschalia Spyridou and Dimitra L. Milioni

capacity to resist political pressure by reclaiming its economic and operational autonomy. The second critique emphasizes mismanagement and a stagnant organizational culture as factors hindering the drastic reform that will allow the public broadcaster to address new realities and possibilities. Subsequently, to increase productivity and performance CyBC needs to let go of the old model of public broadcasting and to transform its hierarchical, rigid organizational culture into a more flexible, innovative, serviceoriented practice. The final critique connects CyBC’s problems to austerity policies. The crisis is understood as symptomatic of neoliberal policies that have direct negative effects on both labour conditions and output. The proposed solution calls for targeted lay-offs and investment in high-quality, appealing informational, educational and entertaining programming. The formulation of these critiques is in itself a positive development because it shows that there exist alternative visions of a possible post-crisis condition (Siapera, Papadopoulou and Archontakis 2014). However, looking more closely at the critiques articulated, we can discern a core ambivalence that casts doubt on these discourses’ potential to challenge the status quo. To begin with, the critiques indicate that the crisis of public service media is a result of perennial problematic ideas and practices (e.g. clientelism, political interventionism) that inhere in the broader Cypriot political culture. The proposed solution – strengthening the professional autonomy of journalists in CyBC – places the responsibility and capacity for resistance solely in the hands of governing bodies (in this case, CyBC’s management board). In an interviewee’s own words: ‘Resistance is the answer. But resistance is a decision to be made by the Board’ (S.H.). What is apparently lacking is evidence of a strong journalistic agency that would allow journalists to renegotiate and reclaim control over their relation to an interventionist political system. Instead, what emerges is a general ‘narrative of decline’ – a devastating critique of an organization in terminal decline in terms of credibility, popularity and relevance. Yet the idea of abandoning the public CyBC’s primary frame of reference receives little attention. Given that public service broadcasting (PSB) is ideologically linked to the ideal of a deliberative public sphere, Enli (2008) advocates redefining the traditional ‘Reithian trinity’ of PSB in the digital era as entertainment, education and participation. The latter comprises a vital media strategy for institutional legitimacy, trust and platform expansion (Bardoel and d’Haenens 2008; Trappel 2014). Carpentier (2011), through his minimalist-maximalist participation model, draws a distinction between participation through the media and participation in the media, the latter signalling users’ greater involvement in decision-making . . . 114 . . .

Financial Crisis, Austerity and Public Service Media

processes about media organizations’ policy. The critiques articulated in this study make little reference to the opportunities to increase public participation that are provided by new media technologies. Participation is best perceived, in the words of interviewees, ‘as having an audience at the studio’ (T.T.), whereas participatory journalism components are best kept ‘separately from the news bulletin’ (G.M.). The key demand here is not only that CyBC abort a long-standing tradition of having politicians and parties as its preferred partners, but that it also move in the direction of a genuine public service profile following the trends and needs of the postindustrial paradigm ( Jackson 2013). Finally, the critique of austerity is a protest against the implementation of neoliberal policies. Yet the proposed solutions (targeted lay-offs, increased advertising revenues) in practice reproduce and legitimize the basic neoliberal discourses instead of articulating a systemic critique that would associate the ‘crisis’ of the public broadcaster with the deteriorating conditions of the Cypriot society at large. CyBC is at a crossroads, and the way the process of adjustment and reform develops will play a key role in the evolving structure of democratic communication in the country for some time to come. The study’s findings indicate that at the very least, it is debatable whether the critiques formulated organically from within CyBC contain the seeds of autonomous action on the part of journalists. Until this phase is understood as a critical juncture rather than a crisis to be solved using economic arguments alone, CyBC will face the risk of effectively becoming an irrelevant media actor.

Acknowledgements This research was co-funded by the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation and the European Regional Development Fund in the period 2012– 2014 (DESMI 2009–2010).

LIA-PASCHALIA SPYRIDOU is Lecturer in Journalism and Media Studies and coordinator of the BA in Journalism at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cyprus. In 2012 she received a postdoctoral fellowship from the Aristotle University for her research on participatory journalism. She has published in Journalism, Journalism Studies, Journalism Practice, European Journal of Communication and International Communication Gazette, among other journals. Her research interests lie in the fields of jour. . . 115 . . .

Lia-Paschalia Spyridou and Dimitra L. Milioni

nalism, alternative and participatory media, political communication, online activism and social networks. DIMITRA L. MILIONI is Assistant Professor of Media Studies at the Department of Communication and Internet Studies, Cyprus University of Technology. Her research generally focuses on the impact of online communication technologies on the public sphere. Her research work has been published in Media, Culture & Society, Convergence, Javnost/The Public and International Journal of Communication, among other journals. She is the coauthor of the monograph Alternative Media: A Heterogeneous Place of Agency and Resistance to Power, forthcoming). Her research interests include alternative and participatory media, protest and social movements, political communication, audience participation and algorithm studies.

Notes 1 https://tradingeconomics.com/cyprus/gdp (Retrieved 27 June 2017). 2. European Central Bank, Unemployment Rate, http://sdw.ecb.europa.eu/quickview.do? SERIES_KEY=132.STS.M.CY.S.UNEH.RTT000.4.000 (Retrieved 27 June 2017). 3. Audit Findings for the Explosion at Mari (September 2011), p. 636, http://media.phile news.com/porisma.pdf (Retrieved 27 June 2017). 4. Holders of Greek governmental bonds would lose 53.5 per cent of the face value of the bonds. 5. CyBC first launched in 1953. Today it transmits island-wide on four radio and two television channels, as well as a satellite channel for the Cypriot diaspora. One radio channel ranks consistently first in audience ratings, while its television programmes rank in total generally above the threshold of 10 per cent. 6. Source: http://kathimerini.com.cy/index.php?pageaction=kat&modid=1&artid=204985. 7. Source: http://riknews.com.cy/index.php/news/kinonia/item/14115-apolyseis-fernei-okoutsouremenos-proypologismos-tou-rik (Retrieved 22 June 2016). 8. For examples of such publicity, see http://www.philenews.com/el-gr/top-stories/885/ 166231/ydrokefalo-charaktirise-to-rik-o-sokratis-chasikos (Retrieved 26 June 2017), http://www.politis-news.com/cgibin/hweb?-A=290405&-V=articles (Retrieved 26 June 2017), http://www.24news.com.cy/index.php?pageaction=kat&modid=1&artid=50475 (Retrieved 26 June 2017). 9. To ensure the anonymity of interviewees, the analysis provides only the initials next to the quotes, while their status is described in generic terms as follows: • (1) G.T, (2) T.T, (3) G.M. High-level managers. • (4) S.H, (5) E.S, (6) Y.I. Medium-level managers. • (7) E.M., (8) P.P., (9) K.T., (10) A.K., (11) K.C., (12) S.O. Journalists. 10. In an effort to combat declining public legitimacy in a changing communicative environment, CyBC initiated in 2014 a campaign under the title ‘Public Deliberation for CyBC: The CyBC We Want’. Citizens had the opportunity to express their complaints as well . . . 116 . . .

Financial Crisis, Austerity and Public Service Media

11. 12.

13. 14.

their desires and expectations of the public broadcaster. A special section was created on the official page of CyBC (www.cybc.com.cy); after registering, citizens could fill in the form and submit it. About 650 forms were collected. A special committee within CyBC processed the data. CyBC denied the authors’ request for direct access to data about the campaign. The authors were actively involved in the implementation of the platform We Report Cyprus, which was developed as part of a research project funded by the Cyprus Research Promotion Foundation and the European Regional Development Fund (2012–2014). In 2015 CyBC eventually reinitiated its online presence through a redesigned website (http://www.riknews.com.cy/). Source: Unpublished Findings of the Public Deliberation Campaign conducted by CYBC in 2014.

References Baek, M. 2009. ‘A Comparative Analysis of Political Communication Systems and Voter Turnout’, American Journal of Political Science 53(2): 376–93. Bardoel, J., and L. d’Haenens. 2008. ‘Reinventing Public Service Broadcasting in Europe: Prospects, Promises and Problems’, Media, Culture & Society 30(3): 337–55. Brevini, B. 2013. ‘European Commission Media Policy and Its Pro-Market Inclination: The Revised 2009 Communication on State Aid to PSBs and its Restraining Effect on PSB Online’, European Journal of Communication 28(2): 183–97. Broughton Micova, S. 2012. ‘Born into Crisis: Public Service Broadcasting in South East Europe’, in G. Ferrell Lowe and J. Steemers (eds), Regaining the Initiative for Public Service Media. Göteborg: Nordicom, pp. 131–48. Carpentier, N. 2011. Media and Participation: A Site of Ideological-Political Struggle. Bristol: Intellect. Charalambous, G. 2014. Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis. PCC Report 2/2014. Oslo: Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO). Christophorou, C. 2006. ‘Party Change and Development in Cyprus (1995–2005)’, South European Society and Politics 11(3): 513–42. Cushion, S. 2012. The Democratic Value of News: Why Public Service Media Matter. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Dahlgren, P. 2001. ‘The Transformation of Democracy?’ in B. Axford and R. Huggins (eds), New Media and Politics. London: Sage, pp. 64–88. Demetriou, K. 2015. The Impact of the Crisis on Fundamental Rights across Member States of the EU: Country Report on Cyprus. Study for the Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) Committee of the European Parliament. Directorate-General for Internet Policies. Ekdale, B., et al. 2015. ‘Newswork within a Culture of Job Insecurity’, Journalism Practice 9(3): 383–98. Enli, G.S. 2008. ‘Redefining Public Service Broadcasting: Multi-Platform Participation’, Convergence 14(1): 105–20. European Broadcasting Union (EBU). 2014. ‘Connecting to a Networked Society – Vision 2020’. Retrieved 13 November 2015 from http://www3.ebu.ch/files/live/sites/ebu/files/ Publications/EBU-Vision2020-Full_report_EN.pdf. Faustmann, H. 2010. ‘Rusfeti and Political Patronage in the Republic of Cyprus’, The Cyprus Review 22(2): 269–89. Ferrell Lowe, G., and J. Steemers. 2012. Regaining the Initiative for Public Service Media. Göteborg: Nordicom. Flew, T., and S. Waisbord. 2015. ‘The Ongoing Significance of National Media Systems in the Context of Media Globalization’, Media, Culture & Society 37(4): 620–36. . . . 117 . . .

Lia-Paschalia Spyridou and Dimitra L. Milioni Franklin, B. 2012. ‘The Future of Journalism’, Journalism Studies 13(5–6): 663–81. Hallin, D., and P. Mancini. 2004. Comparing Media Systems: Three Models of Media and Politics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hanretty, C. 2012. Public Service Broadcasting’s Continued Rude Health. London: British Academy Policy Centre. Holtz-Bacha, C., and P. Norris. 2001. ‘To Entertain, Inform, and Educate: Still the Role of Public Television?’ Political Communication 118: 123–40. Ioannou, C., and A. Emilianidis. 2013. ‘How and Why Cyprus Sank into the Crisis’, Foreign Affairs: The Hellenic Edition, 3 March. Retrieved 13 November 2015 from http:// foreignaffairs.gr/articles/69205/xristina-ioannoy-kai-axilleas-aimilianidis/pos-kai-giati-ikypros-bythistike-stin-krisi?page=show. Iosifidis, P. 2014. ‘Social Media, Democracy and Public Service Media’, International Conference on Communication, Media, Technology and Design, Istanbul, 24–26 April 2014. Jackson, L. 2013. ‘Experiments and Participatory Practices at the BBC’, in A. Gulyás and F. Hammer (eds), Public Service Media in the Digital Age: International Perspectives. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars, pp. 21–36. Jakubowicz, K. 2007. ‘Public Service Broadcasting: A New Beginning, or the Beginning of the End?’ Report Retrieved 13 November 2015 from http://www.coe.int/t/dghl/ standardsetting/media/doc/PSB_Anewbeginning_KJ_en.pdf. Jenkins, H. 2006. Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: NYU Press. Katsourides, Y. 2013. ‘“Couch Activism” and the Individualisation of Political Demands: Political Behaviour in Contemporary Cypriot Society’, Journal of Contemporary European Studies 21(1): 87–103. Ker-Lindsay, J. 2006. ‘Presidential Power and Authority in the Republic of Cyprus’, Mediterranean Politics 11(1): 21–37. Klinenberg, E. 2005. ‘Convergence: News Production in a Digital Age’, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 597(1): 48–64. Mancini, P. 2014. ‘Public Service Media and the Political System’, Media and Communication 1(2): 9–18. McChesney, R. 2013. Digital Disconnect: How Capitalism Is Turning the Internet against Democracy. New York: The New Press. Milioni, D.L., L.-P. Spyridou and M. Koumis. Forthcoming. ‘Cyprus: Behind Closed ( Journalistic) Doors’, in S. Fengler, T. Eberwein and M. Karmasin (eds), European Handbook of Media Accountability. London: Routledge. Nowak, E. 2014. ‘Autonomy and Regulatory Frameworks of Public Service Media in the Triangle of Politics, the Public and Economy: A Comparative Approach’. Working Paper. Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism. Retrieved 15 January 2016 from http://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/publication/autonomy-and-regulatoryframeworks-public-service-media-triangle-politics-public-and. Pew Research Center. 2015. ‘State of the News Media Report 2015’. Retrieved 13 November 2015 from http://www.journalism.org/files/2015/04/FINAL-STATE-OF-THE-NEWSMEDIA1.pdf. Picard, R. 2002. ‘Focusing the Public Service Mission in a Competitive Broadcast Marketplace’, RIPE@2002 Conference, Helsinki and Tampere, 17–19 January 2002. Retrieved 13 November 2015 from http://ripeat.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Picard.pdf. ———. 2014. ‘The Future of the Political Economy of Press Freedom’, Communication Law and Policy 19(1): 97–107. Preston, P., and H. Silke. 2014. ‘Ireland: From Neoliberal Champion to “the Eye of the Storm”’, Javnost/The Public 21(4): 5–24. PricewaterhouseCoopers. 2014. ‘Report for CyBC on Behalf of the Ministry of Internal Affairs’. Retrieved 13 November 2015 from http://media.philenews.com/PDF/rikone.pdf. Rice, P., and D. Ezzy. 1999. Qualitative Research Methods: A Health Focus. Melbourne: Oxford University Press.

. . . 118 . . .

Financial Crisis, Austerity and Public Service Media Siapera, E., L. Papadopoulou, and F. Archontakis. 2014. ‘Post-Crisis Journalism: Critique and Renewal in Greek Journalism’, Journalism Studies 16(3): 449–65. Smyrnaios, N. 2012. ‘How Does News Infomediation Operate Online? The Examples of Google and Facebook’, 10th World Media Economics and Management Conference, Thessaloniki, 23–27 May 2012. Sophocleous, A. 2008. The Cypriot Mass Media. Nicosia: Nikoklis [in Greek]. Soroka, S., et al. 2012. ‘Auntie Knows Best? Public Broadcasters and Current Affairs Knowledge’, British Journal of Political Science 43(4): 719–39. Spyridou, L.-P., et al. 2013. ‘Journalism in a State of Flux: Journalists as Agents of Technology Innovation and Emerging News Practices’, The International Communication Gazette 75(1): 76–98. Spyridou, L.-P., and D.L. Milioni. 2014. ‘The Present and Future of Public Service Media under Austerity: The Case of CYBC’, TEXTE-Special Issue on Public Service Media in the digital age. Retrieved 13 November 2015 from http://zukunft.orf.at/modules/orfpublicvalue/ upload/13r0003.pdf. Spyridou, L.-P., and A. Veglis. 2016. ‘Convergence and Role Changes in Journalism: Towards the “Super Journalist” Paradigm’, in A. Lugmayr and C. Dal Zotto (eds), Media Convergence Handbook, Vol. 1, Journalism, Broadcasting and Social Media Aspects of Convergence. Berlin: Springer-Verlag, pp. 99–116. Tambini, D. 2015. ‘Five Theses on Public Media and Digitization: From a 56-Country Study’, International Journal of Communication 9: 1400–424. ‘The Law about CyBC’. 2010. Retrieved 13 November 2015 from http://www.cylaw.org/ nomoi/enop/non-ind/0_300A/full.html. Thompson, P. 2014. ‘A New Hope or a Lost Cause? The EBU’s Vision 2020 Report and the Future of Public Service Media’, The Political Economy of Communication 2(1): 67–74. Trappel, J. 2008. ‘Online Media Within the Public Service Realm?’ Convergence 14(3): 313–22. ———. 2014. ‘What Media Value? Theorising on Social Values and Testing in Ten Countries’, in G. Ferrell Lowe and F. Martin (eds), The Value of Public Service Media, Göteborg: Nordicom, pp. 125–42. Van Dijck, J., and T. Poell. 2015. ‘Making Public Television Social? Public Service Broadcasting and the Challenges of Social Media’, Television & New Media 16(2): 148–64. Webster, J., and T. Ksiazek. 2012. ‘The Dynamics of Audience Fragmentation: Public Attention in an Age of Digital Media’, Journal of Communication 62(1): 39–56.

. . . 119 . . .

PART II CONFLICT REPRESENTATIONS OF CYPRUS FROM WITHIN (NORTH AND SOUTH)

T

Chapter 5

HE ‘OTHERS’ IN PEACE TALKS

Representation of ‘Us’ and ‘Them’ in the Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot Press

Christophoros Christophorou and Sanem S¸ahin

Introduction In Cyprus, national leaders have always had a significant impact on political and public life on both sides of the island, especially in the efforts to solve the Cyprus conflict. Studies explain how the Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash’s and the Greek-Cypriot leader Tassos Papadopoulos’ policies and actions based on adversarial mono-ethnic nationalism (Anastasiou 2007: 191) played a key role in the failure of the UN settlement plan in Cyprus in 2004 (Christophorou 2005). Regardless of whether the lack of success in this attempt can be explained by the leaders’ actions alone, the episode highlights the crucial role of community leaders in international and diplomatic initiatives for a solution on the island. In the post-Annan1 era, the leadership of the Turkish-Cypriot Mehmet Ali Talat and the Greek-Cypriot Demetris Christofias, who were both leftwing, was seen as a shift away from the leaders’ previous nationalist and rejectionist positions, and towards a reunificationist and federalist stance (Michael 2013: 530). However, the election of nationalist Dervis Eroğlu to the Turkish-Cypriot leadership in 2010 and the right-wing Nicos Anastasiades to the Greek-Cypriot presidency in 2013 changed the positions of the leaders in the Cyprus dispute again. Whatever their positions, the meetings between these leaders were significant in that they marked the resumption of peace talks. Cypriot political leaders’ policies and actions are extensively communicated through the mainstream news media. Leaders’ meetings in the frame-

Christophoros Christophorou and Sanem S¸ahin

work of inter-communal talks are highly mediated events (Christophorou, Şahin and Pavlou 2010). Yet research shows that rather than acting as a pluralistic public sphere, Cyprus’s news media have taken a nationalistic approach, defining the key issues of the conflict in terms of ‘us’ and ‘them’ (Christophorou et al. 2010; Bailie and Azgin 2008; Ersoy 2010). Concentrating on the meetings that took place between Talat and Christofias in July 2008, and Eroğlu and Anastasiades in 2014, this chapter analyses the processes by which the press produces and articulates national identities via construction of the ‘other’. Examining the messages the news media have articulated for the publics on both sides of the island revealed evidence about the practices and discourses employed to mobilize readers around certain national imaginings concerning the Cyprus Problem.

Brief Account of the Negotiations for a Settlement of the Cyprus Problem The politics of identity played a central role in the increase of inter-communal tension and the creation of the Cyprus Problem (Bryant 2004; Calotychos 1998; Kızılyürek 2002, Papadakis 2005), namely the conflict between the island’s Greek-Cypriot and the Turkish-Cypriot communities, involving also Greece and Turkey. The pursuance of two opposing projects, enosis or union of Cyprus with Greece by the Greek-Cypriot community, and taksim or partition of the island between the two communities by the TurkishCypriot community, led to violent conflict in the late 1950s and caused the collapse, in late 1963, of the bi-communal character of the Republic of Cyprus (RoC), established in 1960 (Markides 1977). Since 1964 the RoC, under the sole control of Greek-Cypriots, remains the only internationally recognized state on the island. A coup against Archbishop Makarios, the first president of the RoC and an advocate of enosis, was followed by Turkey’s military intervention and effective occupation of the island’s northern part in summer 1974 (Markides 1977). The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) was declared in that area in 1983, recognized only by Turkey. In 1977 the two sides agreed to search for a federal solution for Cyprus, pursued since then in multiple rounds of negotiations. Efforts to solve the conflict through inter-communal negotiations started in May 1968 (Tornaritis 1980). Following the events of summer 1974, leaders continued to negotiate various aspects of the conflict, such as constitution, governance, territory and security, on a new basis, that of a federation. Prior to UN Secretary General Kofi Annan’s 2002 proposal, ‘The Basis for Agree. . . 124 . . .

The ‘Others’ in Peace Talks

ment on a Comprehensive Settlement of the Cyprus Problem’, known as the Annan Plan, there was little progress because of ‘the contrasting motives, priorities, preferences and objectives of the two sides, who differed significantly on questions of maintaining/changing the status quo; rapid unification/ gradual evolution; federation/confederation; and unitary/(con)federal arrangements’ (Michael 2007: 589). The Annan Plan, put to referenda simultaneously on both sides of the island in April 2004, was rejected by 76 per cent of Greek-Cypriots and approved by 65 per cent of Turkish-Cypriots. After years of stagnation, the election of Greek-Cypriot President Christofias in 2008 ushered in a new period of talks. The resumption of negotiations between Talat and Christofias raised hopes that a speedy solution was possible (Simonsen 2009). Talat’s replacement with Eroğlu in 2010 and Christofias’ with Anastasiades in 2013 changed the dynamics and slowed down the process. The two meetings examined here involved two pairs of leaders with similar political stances in their respective communities. Mehmet Ali Talat and Demetris Christofias were leaders of left-wing political parties, CTP (Cumhuriyetçi Türk Partisi - Republican Turkish Party) and AKEL (Ανορθωτικό Κόμμα Εργαζόμενου Λαού, Progressive Party of Working People) respectively, that had had close relations since the 1970s. Dervis Eroğlu and Nicos Anastasiades, on the other hand, headed conservative parties. Talat and Christofias met on 25 July 2008 to decide whether to set the starting day of a new negotiation process. The international community was in favour of resuming the talks, after years of stagnation following the April 2004 referenda on the Annan Plan. The two leaders were expected to announce fullfledged negotiations, as they had expressed their commitment to a bi-zonal and bi-communal federal solution in a joint statement of 23 May 2008. Eroğlu and Anastasiades met on 11 February 2014 to approve an agreement that set a detailed framework for resuming the negotiation process. The international community put pressure on the two conservative leaders to continue efforts for an agreed settlement of the conflict. There were also claims that the collapse of the Greek-Cypriot economy in 2013 and the discovery of hydrocarbons in the East Mediterranean earlier played a role in engaging in a new round of talks (Smith 2014).2

National Identity and the Media National identity is discursively constructed based on the oppositional metaphors of ‘us’ and the ‘other’, emphasizing the homogeneity of the mem. . . 125 . . .

Christophoros Christophorou and Sanem S¸ahin

bers of the ‘us-group’, which is distinct from that of the ‘them-group’. This construction, based on stereotyping ‘us’ with positive characteristics and ‘them’ with negative ones, is the main strategy of discrimination (Wodak et al. 1999: 8). The existence of the ‘other’ is crucial to the construction of identity, as ‘there can be no “us” without “them”’ (Billig 1995: 7) and a difference from the ‘other’ is crucial in the definition of an identity: anything that the ‘other’ is, ‘we’ are not. As Hall (1996: 4) explains, in relation to identity construction, ‘it is only in relation to the “other”, the relation to what is not, to precisely what it lacks, to what has been called its constitutive outside that the positive meaning of any term – and thus its identity can be constructed’. During conflicts, such constructions of identity based on dichotomies of ‘us-good’/‘them-bad’ become more salient as well as more exclusive and monolithic (Kelman 2005: 2). They influence ‘our’ actions and label them as legitimate; meanwhile, demonizing the ‘others’ helps justify violence towards, or exclusion of, the ‘other’. Despite being accepted as fixed, identity category definitions such as ‘who belongs to the nation’ and ‘who does not’ shift depending on who gets mobilized, and how, in support of the national interests (Reicher and Hopkins 2001). Thus different political projects that are perceived to be in ‘our’ national interest produce different definitions of national identity and create new ‘others’ (ibid.), confirming that identity is not fixed but is constantly redefined and renegotiated. In Cyprus, today, the ongoing conflict between each community and the ‘other’ still influences the definition and meaning of identity. Different versions of identity – Turkish, Turkish-Cypriot, Cypriot, Greek-Cypriot, European – can coexist. Although any such designation might be presented as the natural identity, its meaning could change within different contexts. For instance, certain traditions, mentalities and behaviours common to both sides of Cyprus could be highlighted to forge a sense of Cypriot identity and produce a perception of a Cypriot character. On the other hand, TurkishCypriots may stress their Cypriotness in relation to mainland Turks, and their Turkishness when positioned against Greek-Cypriots (Aksoy 2005; Papadakis 2005; Ramm 2002–2003; Şahin 2008). The involvement of other actors such as Turkey, Greece, the European Union and the United Nations in the efforts to solve the Cyprus conflict not only complicates the continual renegotiation and reconstruction of identity; it also shows the highly politicized nature of the identity issue in Cyprus. Identification with third-party allies such as Turkey or Greece as ‘motherlands’, or with Europe, exemplifies the fluidity of national identities and the creation of new ‘others’. Especially in conflicts involving group identities, the media’s production and articulation of identity is a significant element, as the media discourses . . . 126 . . .

The ‘Others’ in Peace Talks

based on the dichotomy of ‘self’ and ‘other’ may have implications for the public’s perception of the conflict (Reuben 2009). In Cyprus, the media’s nationalist news coverage has been an important feature of the conflict that may be reinforcing negative attitudes toward the ‘other’ (Christophorou et al. 2010; Şahin 2008). Since the very beginning of the conflict between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots, the media have mainly adopted their own community’s national projects (i.e. the Greek-Cypriot media adopted enosis; and the Turkish-Cypriot media, taksim) and defended their own communities’ rights, leading to a polarization of the different sides. Shifts in each community’s national projects since then have been followed by corresponding changes in media positions. More importantly, these national discourses’ dominance in the media left little space for different collective identity discourses and representations (Christophorou et al. 2010; Şahin 2008). For example, rather than acting as a pluralistic public sphere in which informed debate on the Annan Plan could take place, the media on both sides of the island narrowed the presentation of the crucial issues to a framework of ‘us’ and ‘them’ or ‘patriots’ versus ‘traitors’ (Christophorou 2005). Research shows that despite continuing efforts for a peaceful settlement, the media employ a conflict-oriented approach, even when reporting peace efforts (Bailie and Azgin 2008). In a study on Greek-Cypriot television news, Milioni et al. (2015: 769) identified the characteristics of conflict-oriented reporting as ‘lack of balanced reference to the positions of all involved parties, attribution of responsibility to one specific side, no inference to the deeper causes of the conflict or to the possibilities of de-escalation, and use of divisive language’. By reproducing the nationalist discourses of political elites (Christophorou et al. 2010; Ersoy 2010; Şahin 2014), the media adopt the ‘artificial conflict employed by politicians regarding public affairs’ and ‘nurture the culture of (political) antagonism in the Cypriot society’ (Milioni et al. 2015: 768).

Methodology The focus of this study is news reports, editorials and columns in four out of five Greek-Cypriot and four out of eleven Turkish-Cypriot dailies circulating on the island at the time of research, representing the mainstream press. These newspapers were chosen because they reflect a broad spectrum of political opinions and large circulations. Some of these newspapers are independent and some are affiliated with political parties of the left or the right. The Greek-Cypriot newspapers included in the study are Phileleftheros (Φιλελεύθερος – Liberal), which is considered independent and representa. . . 127 . . .

Christophoros Christophorou and Sanem S¸ahin

tive of mainstream views, and has the largest circulation; Simerini (Σημερινή – Today’s [newspaper]), a conservative paper that echoes nationalist views; Haravgi (Χαραυγή – Dawn), the mouthpiece of AKEL (Ανορθωτικό Κόμμα Εργαζόμενου Λαού – Progressive Party of Working People), which favours a federal solution; and Politis (Πολίτης – Citizen), which is considered independent and supports efforts for a federal solution. The Turkish-Cypriot newspapers studied are Halkın Sesi (The Voice of the People), which has a nationalist stance and supports conservative policies; Afrika (Africa), a radical left-wing newspaper supportive of the reunification of Cyprus; Kıbrıs (Cyprus), a liberal newspaper with the highest circulation; and Yenidüzen (New Order), the mouthpiece of the left-wing CTP (Cumhuriyetçi Türk Partisi - Republican Turkish Party), supportive of a federal solution. This chapter analyses the press coverage of the leaders’ meetings on 25 July 2008 and 11 February 2014 by examining three consecutive issues of the aforementioned newspapers (25–27 July 2008 and 11–13 February 2014) to identify the expectations for the meetings and the reactions to their outcomes. In total, we analysed 305 articles from the 2008 period (158 from the Greek-Cypriot newspapers and 147 from the Turkish-Cypriot newspapers) and 367 articles from the 2014 period (178 from the Greek-Cypriot newspapers and 189 from the Turkish-Cypriot newspapers). Using critical discourse analysis (CDA), this study examines practices and discourses used in the news that promote the discursive construction of national identity in relation to the ‘other’. CDA is useful for showing the links between the media texts and the sociocultural processes in which they are produced. As Fairclough (1995: 52) explains, media texts are a ‘sensitive barometer’ of sociocultural changes, as these changes can be found in the discursive practices of the media. Therefore, the study’s focus on the discursive strategies used in the press enables us to pinpoint conceptualizations of national identities during the leaders’ negotiation processes and eventual shifts, along with changes in the social and cultural environment. Discursive strategies can be described as conscious plans of action to achieve a certain political, psychological or other kind of objective (Wodak et al. 1999). These strategies are employed through the use of language to emphasize sameness, inclusion and continuity, as well as difference, exclusion and discontinuity.

The Articulation of Identities through ‘Othering’ The analysis of the eight newspapers’ articles regarding the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot leaders’ meetings in 2008 and 2014 showed that each . . . 128 . . .

The ‘Others’ in Peace Talks

community’s identity was discursively articulated through ‘othering’, identified in three areas: the ‘major other’, which is the big enemy, the ‘internal other(s)’ and the ‘third other(s)’.

Delegitimizing the ‘Major Other’ In the coverage of the meetings in 2008 and 2014, the press on both sides of the island used similar discursive strategies in constructions of the ‘other’. One such strategy was visible in the two sides’ ongoing struggle about the political legitimacy of the polities as states. In the cases of both meetings, each side refused to recognize the legitimacy and authority of the ‘other’ state. The Turkish-Cypriot newspapers did not recognize the official status of the ‘other’ side, instead defining the Republic of Cyprus as the ‘Greek Cypriot Administration’ and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus as the ‘Republic’. This is an example of reinforcing the political legitimacy of the TRNC while discrediting the legitimacy of the Republic of Cyprus. Similarly, the Greek-Cypriot newspapers defined the TRNC as ‘pseudo-’ or ‘so-called’, that is, non-real or fake. Furthermore, the northern part was (and still is) frequently described as ‘occupied areas’ (κατεχόμενα), implying its lack of sovereignty and stressing the control exercised by Turkey. These designations were all in line with the national official discourses that reinforce the legitimacy of ‘our’ state while discrediting the ‘other’ one. The identification of the ‘other’ side was also subject to similar approaches: While all Greek-Cypriot dailies quoted the Greek-Cypriot side as such, with Simerini also using ‘Greek’ and ‘Cypriot’ side, only Politis and Haravgi referred to the ‘other’ as ‘the Turkish-Cypriot side’. Phileleftheros and Simerini never used the description ‘Turkish-Cypriot side’, invariably employing ‘the Turkish side’ or simply ‘Turks’ or ‘Turkish’. This may indicate that for these dailies, ‘all Turks are the same’, while also denying an autonomous Turkish-Cypriot status, demeaning or annihilating the Turkish-Cypriot leadership, society and community. This practice extended to state officials. Whereas the agreed formula for negotiations was that negotiators participated in the meetings as community leaders, their treatment in the media was unequal: the Greek-Cypriot dailies treated the Turkish-Cypriot leaders as though they had no official status, citing both Greek-Cypriot leaders as ‘Presidents’ while referring to the Turkish-Cypriot leaders simply as ‘leaders’ or, less often, only by their surnames. Phileleftheros commonly referred to Talat and Eroğlu as ‘occupation leaders’ in its coverage of both meetings. Simerini used the same label, but only in 2014, and called also Eroğlu a ‘puppet of the occupation’ (εγκάθετος της κατοχής) (11 February 2014). Phileleftheros avoided . . . 129 . . .

Christophoros Christophorou and Sanem S¸ahin

calling Eroğlu and Talat ‘Mr’, a common practice employed by the other Greek-Cypriot dailies when referring to the two leaders, which can be seen as an additional delegitimizing and demeaning strategy. The TurkishCypriot dailies were no different: Mehmet Ali Talat and Dervis Eroğlu were the ‘TRNC Presidents’, while Demetris Christofias and Nicos Anastasiades were the ‘Greek-Cypriot leaders’, ‘Greek-Cypriot community leaders’ or ‘leaders of the Greek-Cypriot administration’. This was a case of personifying the states in the image of their leaders to question their legality. Accentuating ‘our’ president in relation to the ‘other’ leader both reinforced the political legitimacy of ‘our’ state in relation to the ‘other’ state, and strengthened the role of the nationalistic official ideology in discrediting the legitimacy of the ‘other’ state. The same strategy was applied to the ‘other’s’ officials as well. While the Greek-Cypriot dailies used ‘pseudo-’ or inverted commas when referring to Turkish-Cypriot officials, the Turkish-Cypriot dailies simply used the description ‘Greek Cypriot Administration officials’. However, there were some differentiations in the Turkish-Cypriot press. Afrika, a radical left newspaper, referred to both leaders by their surnames alone – Talat and Christofias – in its coverage of the leaders’ meeting in 2008 (25 July 2008; 26 July 2008). By refraining from using their official titles, this newspaper not only contested the Turkish-Cypriot official policy on this issue but also stripped both leaders of any official responsibility as heads of the states, which could be seen as contesting the legitimacy of these states and the leaders’ position in them. In one article, the left-wing Yenidüzen referred to Christofias as the President of South Cyprus and the President of the Greek-Cypriot Administration (26 July 2008), but this was an isolated case rather than a common practice. In a similar way, in 2014 Afrika continued referring to the leaders by their surnames only, Anastasiades and Eroğlu, and did not use any official titles for the leaders throughout its coverage. This time there was also some change in Yenidüzen, which used the usual ‘the president’ and ‘the community leader’ distinction until the meeting but, in reporting on the meeting itself, defined the leaders as the Turkish-Cypriot (Kıbrıslı Türk) leader and Greek-Cypriot (Kıbrıslı Rum) leader, treating them equally. The other two Turkish-Cypriot newspapers carried on referring to Eroğlu and Anastasiades as the ‘president’ and ‘community leader’ respectively. Putting the blame on the ‘other’ was another common strategy used by the press. Stressing the negative actions of the ‘other’ helped to validate ‘our’ actions and produced positive self-representations. The Turkish-Cypriot press reproduced state official announcements accusing the Greek-Cypriot . . . 130 . . .

The ‘Others’ in Peace Talks

side of obstructing progress in the talks. For example, the front pages of three of the four dailies studied (Afrika was the outlier) featured a press release in which Eroğlu accused Anastasiades of ‘wasting five months’ and asked him not to waste more time at the negotiation table, copied verbatim from the official news agency Türk Ajansı Kıbrıs (Turkish Agency Cyprus), which provides news and information on the Cyprus Problem to the media that are in line with TRNC’s official policies. Such discursive practices not only shifted the blame for the stalemate in the negotiations onto the ‘other’ leader, but also established a difference between ‘us’ and the Greek-Cypriot side by describing the Turkish-Cypriot side as the one wanting to reach a settlement. On the Greek-Cypriot side, the focus was rather on intra-community differences and hopes for a breakthrough. Phileleftheros was an exception; it attributed negative behaviour and maximalist positions to the other side, rather arbitrarily interpreting what had been agreed. The picture of an ‘other’ engaging in negotiations in bad faith was used as a tool to discredit the other and to justify the newspaper’s own (negative) stance. Phileleftheros further extended differences between ‘us’ and the ‘other’ relating to the negotiations by running stories not related to the process. Its negative portrayal of the Turks and Turkey reached a climax two days after the meeting, in Sunday’s edition of 27 July 2008, with the publication of negative articles, covering more than three full pages, that did not appear in any other newspaper. Stories related to both past and present narrated ‘evil’ policies and acts by Turkey and the Turks, depicted as a permanent threat to others. Phileleftheros also published negative stories two days after the 2014 meeting, presenting Turkish-Cypriots as uncooperative and burdensome for Greek-Cypriots, who ‘find symbiosis a dearly expensive experience’.

The Political Environment and the Internal Other(s) On the Turkish-Cypriot side, a high-level political and public consensus held that negotiations were a positive step for ‘our’ political present and future. In line with this, the dominant frame in the news showed the process as a positive step towards a resolution. Alternative frames like the security frame, based on distrust towards the Greek-Cypriots, existed but received less emphasis. In 2008, many headlines in the newspapers included words like ‘hope’, ‘positive’ and ‘support’ in reference to the meeting. Similarly, in 2014 they portrayed the process in headlines as a ‘new era, new hope’, which showed an expectation of positive change in ‘our’ future. While the Turkish-Cypriot press was positive and supportive towards both negotiation processes in 2008 and 2014, the Greek-Cypriot newspa. . . 131 . . .

Christophoros Christophorou and Sanem S¸ahin

pers’ attitude was not unanimous: Phileleftheros was critical in both periods and Simerini was in 2014. This could be related to the political environment on both sides, as suggested by Wolfsfeld (2004), who explains that the level of elite consensus has considerable influence on the role the media play in peace processes. High-level consensus among political elites is more likely to contribute to positive press coverage; low-level elite consensus will lead the media to be more critical and focus on more negative aspects. Elite disagreements within the Greek-Cypriot political environment led some dailies to adopt a critical approach towards the process. The 2008 meeting was generally seen as a normal development, bridging the ground to the expected start of negotiations. The very generic formulation of the negotiations’ goals satisfied everyone. However, Phileleftheros gave prominence to the negative views of political parties and others who objected to the negotiations. In its editorials it also expressed doubts about the prospects of success and the existence of aspects that could justify the start of negotiations (25 July 2008). Simerini appeared somewhat sceptical as to Turkish intentions, though without objecting to the process or the need to have negotiations (27 July 2008). The meeting of 2014 took place in a climate of both positive and negative positions within the Greek-Cypriot community, being strongly opposed by parties other than the two main ones, namely the right-wing DISY (Δημοκρατικός Συναγερμός – Democratic Rally) and the left-wing AKEL. Whereas Politis and Haravgi presented the talks as a happy event because of the increased international interest and support, Phileleftheros covered negative issues such as ‘international interferences’, American pressure and disregard of basic requirements and prerequisites (13 February 2014). Simerini (12 February 2014) presented an oft-repeated scenario where euphoria and hopes always end up as mere illusion and wishful thinking. Under conditions of perceived external threats, solidarity and identification with the leader may be enhanced (Hogg 1993, cited in Hogg 2001: 194). Further, dissenters may be treated as ‘internal other(s)’ on the basis of a new dichotomy that involves different political projects. This is affected by contextual factors. In the Turkish-Cypriot media, the treatment of ‘internal others’ and Turkish-Cypriot leaders reflected the political environment in a positive manner in general. In both the 2008 and 2014 coverage, no significant ‘internal other’ emerged in the Turkish-Cypriot dailies. With regard to the own leader, in 2008 some conservative and nationalist groups’ distrust towards Talat was evident in the newspapers’ coverage; they feared the left-wing leader might make too many concessions. Eroğlu, on the other hand, who as an ardent nationalist had campaigned for a separate Turkish. . . 132 . . .

The ‘Others’ in Peace Talks

Cypriot state and maintenance of the links with Turkey, did not evoke such worries in 2014. During the talks with Anastasiades in 2014, public support for the negotiation process was so unanimous that there was little criticism of Eroğlu. Afrika mocked this lack of criticism by saying ‘it would have been a news story if any organization had opposed it’ (13 February 2014). In a way, the newspapers became a platform for expressing support for the leader and the process. Unsurprisingly, the situation among the Greek-Cypriots looked different. In 2008, three Greek-Cypriot dailies pointed to ‘internal others’. The exception, Haravgi, adopted a positive stance towards those disagreeing, expressing support for the president and welcoming efforts to forge a common future for Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots. Different views, acts or policies on the negotiation process or the solution sought, which had been a diachronic issue of discord among the Greek-Cypriot community (Christophorou 2007), gave rise to the creation of various ‘others’ by all dailies. Politis referred to smaller parties that disagreed with the process of negotiations in demeaning terms by describing them as ‘small’ or ‘minor’ (Μικροί) or calling them ‘those who protest’, and ‘followers of Tassos’ (i.e. former President Tassos Papadopoulos) (Τασσικοί) within DIKO (Δημοκρατικό Κόμμα – Democratic Party). Simerini strongly denounced ‘the political leaders’ for ignoring the basics about the opponent, that is, that the Turkish side was attempting to tranquillize all sides to prevent their alertness. Phileleftheros (27 July 2008) pointed to a more complex and vague group of internal others that ‘created a peculiar situation’: based on the view that all were for a solution, the daily blamed ‘others’ for the fact that Greek-Cypriots had trapped themselves in an unfounded distinction between those favouring a solution and the rejectionists. According to the newspaper, this circumstance was disastrous because it declared Turkey not guilty. In February 2014, the presence of the Greek-Cypriot internal or intra-community ‘others’ and the intensity of the newspapers’ negative treatment of them had little in common with the features of the 2008 meeting coverage. Images of a warlike confrontation dominated both the political scene and the media coverage. Each newspaper had its favoured targets, both when defending its political views and ideology, and thus its political project; and when attacking those who disagreed or had a diverging political project. By giving prominence to specific views, endorsing or explicitly promoting them while also attacking the ‘other(s)’ who had different views, the newspapers increased polarization. Phileleftheros, while viewing Turkey as definitely and by far the primary ‘other’, saw a second ‘other’, the internal, in President Anastasiades, whose . . . 133 . . .

Christophoros Christophorou and Sanem S¸ahin

views and policies the newspaper clearly distanced itself from. The president was depicted as the ‘other’ via phrasing used in the newspaper’s reports on, and via criticisms of, his views and actions. There were also vague references to ‘good-will volunteers’ (‘καλοθελητές’) and ‘usual suspects’ who adopted and disseminated what foreigners or the Turkish side stated or claimed, which, the paper indicated, was a sign of being in ‘the sphere of naivety’. This also pointed to an internal, unnamed ‘other’ that was demeaned and demonized for echoing views ‘identical’ to those of the community’s enemies. Meantime, highly placed editorial staff were more explicit in their own columns, launching an offensive against those who were ‘taking revenge’ for the rejection of the Annan Plan in 2004 (Phileleftheros, 11 February 2014). At the opposite extreme, Politis fully adopted the official positions and openly criticized and demeaned dissident voices, in headlines and comments. In its effort to attack dissident views, Politis also used assertions and comments attributed to, but in reality never made by, the president. Simerini viewed the ‘other’ as President Anastasiades, who was treated in ways that clearly dissociated the newspaper from his policies and the man himself. Most importantly, editorials in Simerini launched fierce attacks on that sole target, the president, severely accusing him of improprieties of a political, moral and ethical nature. Of all four newspapers, Haravgi took the mildest position vis-à-vis the internal ‘other’, appealing to the opposers’ patriotism by asking them to avoid the negativism they had shown under the Christofias government.

The International Community / Third-party ‘Others’ Efforts to reunite Cyprus under a federal structure have continued over the years under the auspices of the United Nations. Actors such as Greece, Turkey, the United Kingdom, the United States and the European Union, which have close relationships with Cyprus, have also become engaged in these efforts. The media’s attitude towards these third parties depends on whether they are regarded as allies or enemies in relation to ‘our’ perceived national interest and how their role in the settlement efforts might affect it. Harth and Shnabel (2015) argue that such identification with third parties either as allies or enemies may have an impact on a group’s attitude towards the third party’s reconciliation messages. They state that conciliatory messages of a third party allied with the other conflict party may increase a group’s members’ willingness to reconcile. Our analysis shows that the third parties to the conflict were present at different intensities during these two periods. In the 2008 context of a negotiation process heralded as a ‘Cypriot project’, third parties were not . . . 134 . . .

The ‘Others’ in Peace Talks

highly visible, but in 2014 the leaders’ meeting took place after long efforts with the involvement of third parties. The Turkish-Cypriot newspapers reflected the international community’s support in the negotiations in 2008 and 2014. The dailies reported on official statements of the UN, the United States, the EU, the United Kingdom, Turkey and Greece’s satisfaction with the leaders’ progress. The messages of these third parties were reported as positive because they were seen as reinforcing ‘our’ national project, which was to reach a settlement of the Cyprus conflict. Among the third parties Turkey, as an ally of the Turkish-Cypriot side, received the most attention in the Turkish-Cypriot press. Its officials’ statements on the Cyprus issue were widely reported in the print media, and the verbatim reproduction of these statements resulted in the dominance of Turkey’s official views and discourses at the peace talks. At the same time, these announcements treated the Turkish-Cypriot side as an independent state and identified its state representatives with proper official titles and as distinct from the Turkish ones, enhancing the idea of the TRNC as a legitimate state. Meanwhile, verbatim accounts of Talat defining Turkey as the only country fulfilling its duty as a guarantor (in the 2008 negotiations) and of Eroğlu calling it the ‘motherland’ (11 February 2014) justified Turkey’s position as an ally. Only Afrika referred to Turkey as the ‘occupying country’ (11 February 2014), challenging the official discourse adopted by the rest of the press. There was some degree of distrust towards the United Kingdom and the United States. In 2008, Talat accused the United Kingdom of siding with the Greek-Cypriot side, thereby categorizing this country as one of the ‘other’ group. In 2014, the dailies showed the United States not as a mere observer but as a player in the process. Reports on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s telephone conversation with his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu on Cyprus, and on Deputy Secretary of State William Burns’ call to Eroğlu, created an image of the United States as an active actor in the efforts to solve the Cyprus Problem. Halkın Sesi and Afrika, repeating Phileleftheros claims, reported that the United States had two secret plans for the accomplishment of an agreement in Cyprus (11 February 2014). Without presenting any substantial evidence to readers, the stories suggested that the United States had two alternative plans that would be implemented if the process failed, implying an action imposed on the people of Cyprus by external forces that might be against their national will and interest. In the Greek-Cypriot newspapers covering the 2008 meeting, thirdparty ‘others’ are depicted in a rather passive role as welcoming the negotiation process. A completely different situation prevailed in 2014, in respect . . . 135 . . .

Christophoros Christophorou and Sanem S¸ahin

of not just the third ‘other’s’ presence, role and reception and the perceptions of its involvement, but also the reaction from the press. The interests of the international community and the involvement of third ‘others’ were extensively and positively covered in the newspapers, which took a mostly descriptive tone. However, a Moscow statement inserted in opposition to the West acted as a warning against creating any climate of pressure. In a 13 February 2014 editorial, Simerini was indirectly critical of the international community, predicting failure ‘when the dust of hypothetical support settles down’ and suggesting pressure be exerted on the ‘Greek side’. Once again, the approach of Phileleftheros differed. The newspaper saw the United States as carrying out a number of active roles in a negotiation process that had been placed under U.S. control, while UN members were treated as bystanders. A ‘staged’ process of interferences and pressures applied to the Greek-Cypriot side served mainly the interests of others and the ‘other’, the Turkish side. Phrasing depicting the USA, led by President Obama, as ‘mobilizing heavy artillery’ painted a clear picture of war, underlining the tension caused by pressures and interferences. Similarly, the European Union and its officials who were present in 2014 were criticized by Phileleftheros for collaborating with the Americans and the British to set a ‘stage of solution’. The EU and its officials were also accused of granting rewards to Turkey – which translated as declaring Ankara ‘not guilty’ despite its (aggressive) policies regarding Cyprus – and presented as not actively supporting a greater EU involvement in Cyprus.

Conclusions The press coverage of the Cypriot leaders’ negotiations on the Cyprus conflict in 2008 and 2014 demonstrated that the leaders’ meetings were opportunities to formulate and reaffirm positions and identity features of the parties involved in the conflict. Critical discourse analysis showed that each community’s identity was discursively (re)affirmed mainly via the identification of ‘others’ (Billig 1995; Hall 1996). This othering was not one-dimensional but was rather manifested mainly in relation to three groups: the ‘major other’ (i.e. the big enemy), the ‘internal other(s)’ and the ‘third-party other(s)’. Furthermore, the positions and the roles of allies and enemies are not fixed, so the identification of ‘others’ and of their traits varied among different times and contexts. Through their ways of identifying leaders and ‘other(s)’, daily newspapers distinguished their own group or community from their opponents. . . . 136 . . .

The ‘Others’ in Peace Talks

They stressed elements of singularity, excluding the ‘other’ and increasing polarization. Different emphasis on the positions and goals of the own group, along with the ways the others were portrayed, determined whether their respective political projects could be reconcilable. The political projects that the dailies presented to their own community were mainly homogeneous. At the same time, the extent to which intra-community projects differed had an impact on each newspaper’s production of ‘others’, their numbers and the quality of relations defined with them. Thus, it was observed that the greater an issue’s significance as a core part of the conflict was, the more homogeneous the press practices on both sides were in defining polarized identities that de-legitimated the ‘other’. The adoption of such an approach, even when resolution of the conflict was an overarching component of a political project, shows that the stance on core issues of a conflict is dependent on the will to take positive steps towards the other. Press coverage of the leaders’ meetings relied heavily on officials’ statements and positions on the talks. However, these statements were reported in a way that failed to provide a platform for public debate. The newspapers that were studied presented the news according to their political and ideological positions. In both communities there were examples of dailies that highlighted voices expressing concern or even objections to the negotiation process, and of others that gave more prominence to positive reactions to the leaders’ talks and the prospects they presented. The Turkish-Cypriot newspapers passively reproduced officials’ statements by simply repeating them verbatim, without processing and contextualizing the information. This type of journalism was not useful for generating public debates about the leaders’ talks, as it only conveyed the views of groups and organizations and did not interpret them for readers. The Greek-Cypriot dailies reported on the same statements in ways that implied agreement or disagreement, or an intention to either endorse and legitimize the views expressed or, inversely, to show disagreement or attempt to de-legitimize (or demean) both the views and the groups making the statements. The political environment was projected in the media, and the consensus of political elites worked to generate more homogeneity in the newspapers’ coverage. In these cases, each side was depicted as united behind one perspective. Echoing the political atmosphere and speaking on behalf of, and to, the nation, each newspaper presented its featured voices and ideas as a national consensus (Hartley 1982) that could justify the processes, means and practices used to delegitimize the other. Conversely, the different political ideologies and projects resulted in the emphatic portrayal of . . . 137 . . .

Christophoros Christophorou and Sanem S¸ahin

differences and polarized identities. In such cases, ‘internal others’ and a situation of high tension emerged, and ‘internal othering’ was sometimes more prominent than the confrontation between the main sides in the conflict. All the while, the ‘consensus of the nation’ was belied by manifest differences within, connected to the different ideological positions. This was illustrated by the case of a Greek-Cypriot daily that chose to paint the ‘other’, any other, in highly negative colours, independently of the context. This persistent negativism, coupled with contestation of the existence of any prospects in negotiations and the indirect denial of any possibility for reconciliation, has clear ideological roots. Reflecting the political elite consensus within the Turkish-Cypriot community, the press supported the leaders and the negotiation process in 2008, as did Greek-Cypriots, but differences among the Greek-Cypriot political elite in 2014 led two dailies to treat President Anastasiades as an ‘internal other’. Thus, in spite of the intrinsic convincing power he wielded as a leader (Hogg 2001), many refused to identify with Anastasiades because of his past choices. Disagreements over the community’s preferred political project seemed to overpower the leader’s intrinsic influence. As an ‘internal other’, the leader faced exclusion from these newspapers’ perceived national identity. Third-party ‘others’ were portrayed differently depending on context and the interpretation of their rhetoric and actions, but also according to whether they supported ‘our’ side’s position and arguments. If they supported ‘our’ positions they were ranked as allies, but if they criticized ‘us’ they were positioned with the ‘other’ group. When a third party was seen as favouring and promoting the resumption of talks, some dailies would depict it as the ‘good other’, while some newspapers, mostly Greek-Cypriot ones, viewed this third other as aiming primarily to promote its own interests, but also to assist the enemy and harm the ‘own’ community. Media representing identities and political projects characterized by singularity appeared to create a bigger number of ‘others’, including internal ones, and to maintain a polarized and exclusion-based relation with them. This applied more to the Greek-Cypriot press. The promotion of nationalist positions, like the adoption of the axiom that others were threatening or conspiring to harm the community or the nation, assumed also that these ‘others’ were by definition and by nature diachronically evil. Identities were articulated with reference to selective material said to be ‘adequate for the case’, or even using fabricated evidence, to delegitimize internal and external opponents alike.

. . . 138 . . .

The ‘Others’ in Peace Talks

The analysis showed that although the newspapers’ coverage was highly reflective of the hegemonic discourse of the political elites, their stances regarding the leaders’ meetings and the negotiations for the settlement of the Cyprus Problem were neither homogeneous nor consistent. Some newspapers distanced themselves from the dominant discourses, either taking a consistent stand against the official nationalist rhetoric (e.g. Africa) or changing their positions and strategies over time, depending on the domestic political context and political balance of power at the time (e.g. Simerini). To some degree these differences mirror the ideological positions of the left and the right – towards a federal solution or towards a strengthening of one’s national integrity – but traces of populist nationalism were found in all cases. Finally, each newspaper seems to have employed the discursive articulation of othering to express positions and affirm or contest an identity.

CHRISTOPHOROS CHRISTOPHOROU studied education in Nicosia and Paris and political science in Athens and Lille. His teaching and publications focus on political parties and electoral behaviour in Cyprus, and on media regulation. SANEM S¸AHIN is a senior lecturer in the School of English and Journalism at the University of Lincoln, teaching courses on ethics, international human rights, war and conflict resolution. She earned a PhD and a master’s degree in the United Kingdom and a bachelor’s degree in Turkey. Prior to her academic career, she worked as a print and broadcast journalist in Cyprus and the U.K. Her research interests include national identity, peace and conflict reporting, marginalized communities, ethnic media and journalism ethics. She was a Fulbright Visiting Scholar and received the Research Fellowship in Peace Studies of the Consortium of Peace Studies in Canada.

Notes 1.

The era after UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s plan for reunification was rejected, in 2004. 2. Negotiations between the two communities started again in May 2015, this time with Nicos Anastasiades and Mustafa Akıncı as the respective leaders of the Greek-Cypriot

. . . 139 . . .

Christophoros Christophorou and Sanem S¸ahin and Turkish-Cypriot communities. Both leaders expressed their intention to reach an agreement, however, the negotiations were concluded in July 2017 and no agreement for reunification was reached (‘Cyprus may have missed its last chance for reunification’ 2017).

References Aksoy, S.P. 2005. ‘Identity and Alterity in Northern Cyprus: Re-defining the Turkish Cypriot Identity’. Retrieved 11 November 2015 from http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/ati/diver sity/multiculturalism/mcb2/aksoy%20paper.pdf. Anastasiou, H. 2007. ‘Nationalism as a Deterrent to Peace and Inter-ethnic Democracy: The Failure of Nationalist Leadership from the Hague Talks to the Cyprus Referendum’, International Studies Perspectives 8(2): 190–205. Bailie, M., and B. Azgin. 2008. ‘A Barricade, a Bridge and a Wall: Cypriot Journalism and the Mediation of Conflict in Cyprus’, The Cyprus Review 20(1): 57–92. Billig, M. 1995. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage. Bryant, R. 2004. Imagining the Modern: The Cultures of Nationalism in Cyprus. London: Taurus. Calotychos, V. 1998. ‘Interdisciplinary Perspectives: Differences at the Heart of Cypriot Identity and Its Study’, in V. Calotychos (ed.), Cyprus and Its People: Nation, Identity and Experience in an Unimaginable Community, 1955–1997. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, pp. 1–32. Christophorou, C. 2005. ‘The Vote for a United Cyprus Deepens Divisions: The 24 April 2004 Referenda in Cyprus’, South European Society and Politics 10(1): 85–104. ———. 2007. ‘An Old Cleavage Causes New Divisions: Parliamentary Elections in the Republic of Cyprus, 21 May 2006’, South European Society and Politics 12(1): 111–28. Christophorou, C., S. Şahin, and S. Pavlou. 2010. Media Narratives, Politics and the Cyprus Problem. Nicosia: Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO) Cyprus Centre. ‘Cyprus may have missed its last chance for reunification’. 2017. The Economist, 9 July. Retrieved 15 July 2017 from https://www.economist.com/news/europe/21724899-collapsetalks-turkish-occupied-north-makes-deal-look-unattainable-cyprus-may. Ersoy, M. 2010. ‘Peace Journalism and News Coverage on the Cyprus Conflict’, Muslim World 100(1): 78–99. Fairclough, N. 1995. Media Discourse. London: Arnold. Hall, S. 1996. ‘Introduction: Who Needs “Identity”?’ in S. Hall and R. Gay (eds), Questions of Cultural Identity. London: Sage, pp. 1–17. Harth, N.S., and N. Shnabel. 2015. ‘Third-party Intervention in Intergroup Reconciliation: The Role of Neutrality and Common Identity with the Other Conflict Party’, Group Processes and Intergroup Relations 18(5): 676–95. Hartley, J. 1982. Understanding News. London: Routledge. Hogg, M.A. 2001. ‘A Social Identity Theory of Leadership’, Personality and Social Psychology Review 5(3): 184–200. Kelman, H. 2005. ‘Building Trust among Enemies: The Central Challenge for International Conflict Resolution’, International Journal of Intercultural Relations 29(6): 639–50. Kızılyürek, N. 2002. Milliyetçilik Kıskacında Kıbrıs [Cyprus in the Grip of Nationalism]. Istanbul: Iletisim. Markides, K. 1977. The Rise and Fall of the Cyprus Republic. New Haven and London: Yale University Press. Michael, M. 2007. ‘The Cyprus Peace Talks: A Critical Appraisal’, Peace Research 44(5): 587–604. ———. 2013. “‘Cypriot-led, Cypriot-owned”: Cyprus Talks Revisited’, Australian Journal of International Affairs 67(4): 526–39. Milioni, D.L., et al. 2015. ‘Conflict as News and News as Conflict: A Multidimensional Content Analysis of TV News in Cyprus’, International Journal of Communication 9: 752–72. . . . 140 . . .

The ‘Others’ in Peace Talks Papadakis, Y. 2005. Echoes from the Dead Zone. London: Taurus. Ramm, C. 2002–2003. ‘Conceptions of National Identity in Cyprus and the Question of European Identity’, Journal of Cyprus Studies 8/9: 34–50. Reicher, S., and Hopkins, N. 2001. Self and Nation. London: Sage. Reuben, R.C. 2009. ‘The Impact of News Coverage on Conflict: Toward Greater Understanding’, Marquetta Law Review 93(1): 45–83. Şahin, S. 2008. ‘The Discursive Construction of National Identity by the Newspapers in North Cyprus’, PhD dissertation. London: University of Westminster. ———. 2014. ‘Diverse Media, Uniform Reports: An Analysis of News Coverage of the Cyprus Problem by the Turkish Cypriot Newspapers’, Journalism 15(4): 446–62. Simonsen, S. 2009. ‘Cyprus: Are Old Friends Offering New Hope for Unity?’ Christian Science Monitor, 7 May. Retrieved 15 October 2015 from http://www.csmonitor.com/World/ Europe/2009/0507/p06s01-woeu.html. Smith, H. 2014. ‘High Stakes as Greeks and Turks Revive Cyprus Peace Talks’, The Guardian, 10 February. Retrieved 15 October 2015 from http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/ feb/10/greeks-turks-cyprus-peace-talks-negotiation. Tornaritis, C. 1980. Cyprus and Its Constitutional and Other Legal Problems. Nicosia: Public Information Office. Wodak, R., et al. 1999. The Discursive Construction of National Identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Wolfsfeld, G. 2004. Media and Path to Peace. New York: Cambridge University Press.

. . . 141 . . .

D

Chapter 6

ISCOURSES OF LEGITIMATION IN THE NEWS

The Case of the Cypriot Bailout

Vaia Doudaki

Introduction After an extended period of negotiations, the Republic of Cyprus and the troika (the EU [European Union], ECB [European Central Bank] and IMF [International Monetary Fund]) reached an agreement in March 2013 on a financial assistance plan that would ‘save’ the country from bankruptcy. The deal included €10 billion in bailout loans in exchange for austerity measures, involving a 47.5 per cent ‘haircut’, a euphemism for a slash, of all deposits above €100,000 in Cypriot banks. The unprecedented decision to enact this measure pushed the country into deep crisis at both the material and the discursive level as the new policy assailed depositors’ savings and undermined the material and symbolic safety a banking system offers. This study focuses on the legitimation discourse employed by mainstream domestic media in the Republic of Cyprus in relation to the signing and implementation of the bailout agreement, which was presented as necessary to prevent the Cypriot economy from collapsing. Previous research has shown that mainstream media support and legitimate the hegemonic discourses about economic crises by privileging the political and economic elites’ framing while discrediting or omitting counterhegemonic or other alternative voices (Preston and Silke 2014; Titley 2012; Doudaki et al. 2016). Given the privileged position of mainstream media in (re)presenting the major discourses of societies (Chakravartty and Schiller 2010; Doudaki,

Discourses of Legitimation in the News

Boubouka and Tzalavras 2016), this study examines the two daily GreekCypriot newspapers with the highest circulation at the time of research, Politis and Phileleftheros. Over an eleven-month period ( June 2012–April 2013), articles associated with major developments in the Cypriot economic crisis and the signing of the bailout agreement were subjected to discourse analysis to locate the main discursive mechanisms of legitimation. Building on previous research on legitimation discourses employed by elite media (Doudaki 2015), this study shows how the mainstream media use the mechanisms of objectivation and naturalization to promote a discourse that presents the hegemonic interpretations of the crisis and its proposed remedies as realities beyond contestation.

News, Ideologies and Legitimation According to the conventions of professional journalism, news presents a factual image of the world. Like any other construction, however, this image is highly selective, subjective and ideologically charged. The ideological charge of media and news, in particular, has often been an object of inquiry within the critical and culturalist strands of media studies (Hall 1979; Hall et al. 1978; Gitlin 1980; Williams 1977), building on the seminal work on power and ideology of Gramsci (Gramsci 1971; Forgacs 2000) and Althusser (1971). Ideologies, according to Fairclough (2003: 9), ‘are representations of aspects of the world which can be shown to contribute to establishing, maintaining and changing social relations of power, domination and exploitation’. Deeply embedded in social structures, ideologies are not abstract or ‘simple systems of ideas but are embodied in institutions, rituals and so forth’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 109). The media, whose cultural products, such as the news, function as bearers of ideologies, are among these institutions. In fact, far from offering neutral accounts of events, news acts rather as a carrier of dense cultural and ideological symbols reflecting popular beliefs and the power dynamics of societies, being one of the main sources of knowledge and power in society (Entman 2004; Tuchman 1978a: 217). Scholars have recurrently pointed out that news tends to construct and legitimate particular ideologically driven visions of society ( Jensen 1987: 24; Entman 2004) through its systematic inclusions and exclusions of events, people and ideas, and its proposed interpretations and definitions of these events and ideas and of social phenomena in general. These sets of explanations offered by the mainstream media are often very similar to those shared by the political and economic elites, who are given privileged access . . . 143 . . .

Vaia Doudaki

to present their views of social reality (Mercille 2014; Reese 1990). In this context, the mainstream media are considered both fields where the hegemonic worldview of society is legitimated (Hall et al. 1978; Gitlin 1980) and active agents of legitimation. Hegemony, in this aspect, is not restricted to political domination of one group over others, but concerns the various means by which a culture’s dominant ideology is reproduced, acknowledged and widely accepted as ‘common sense’ (Dow 1990: 262; Scott 2001: 89). Under these conditions ‘[d]ominant group definitions of reality, norms, and standards appear as normal rather than as political and contestable’ (Deetz 1977: 62). Of course hegemony is neither stable nor guaranteed, given the openness of the social, which is the field but also the precondition of every hegemonic practice (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 142). As Fairclough (1995: 76) notes, hegemony ‘is never achieved more than partially and temporarily, as an “unstable equilibrium”’. Therefore, the key to the hegemony of one social group or ideology over others is its legitimation. Legitimation can be seen as ‘a discourse that justifies “official” action in terms of the rights and duties, politically, socially or legally associated with that role or position’ (Van Dijk 1998: 256). Scott (2001: 14–15) argues that legitimation leads to ‘commitment to or recognition of ideas or values that are accepted as beyond question, as providing intrinsically appropriate reasons for acting … [limiting the subalterns’] … willingness to consider action alternatives’. Especially in times of crisis, the need to legitimate one’s actions and ideas and delegitimize those of one’s opponents becomes stronger, and even more so when one’s legitimacy is severely questioned or when counter-ideologies become prevalent and threaten to dominate it. One of the fields of legitimation is the media, where social actors are given the opportunity to present their ideas and defend their viewpoints. The privileged treatment that elite actors enjoy in the mainstream media as providers of both information and opinion (Hall et al. 1978; Reese 1990) increases their opportunities to create the conditions that legitimate them over other social agents that do not hold power positions in the social sphere. The leading media organizations, being themselves among the elite institutions in society (Gitlin 1980; Mercille 2014), facilitate the circulation of legitimizing discourses created by elite actors while also actively participate in their construction by marginalizing alternative voices (Doudaki et al. 2016) or openly supporting and propagating the hegemonic discourse, as the example of the economic crisis has repeatedly shown (Mylonas 2012, 2014; Preston and Silke 2014; Tracy 2012). . . . 144 . . .

Discourses of Legitimation in the News

Research Outline and Methods As already introduced, the study attempts an exploration of the legitimizing discourse employed by the Greek-Cypriot media in their coverage of the bailout agreement the Republic of Cyprus signed with the troika, by identifying the main legitimation mechanisms through discourse analysis. For the purposes of the study, 131 news texts regarding the bailout agreement were selected1 and analysed over an eleven-month period ( June 2012–April 2013), during which major events related to the economic crisis and its outcomes occurred. More precisely, on 25 June 2012 the Republic of Cyprus filed a financial aid appeal to the European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), after the persistent deterioration of its public finances and its inability to raise liquidity from the markets. An ‘in-principle agreement’ was reached between the troika and the Republic of Cyprus on 29 November, without specifying all the terms of the deal in detail. In February 2013, national elections held in the Republic of Cyprus led to a change of government. The government of the left-wing party AKEL (Ανορθωτικό Κόμμα Εργαζόμενου Λαού, Progressive Party of Working People), led by Demetris Christofias, was succeeded by a coalition government headed by Nikos Anastasiades, composed of the conservative party DISY (Δημοκρατικός Συναγερμός, Democratic Rally) and a smaller centrist party, DIKO (Δημοκρατικό Κόμμα, Democratic Party). The new government undertook to finalize the negotiations on the bailout programme. On 16 March 2013, a first deal was reached, providing for loans of €10bn, a 6.7 per cent haircut (slash) to all deposits up to €100,000 in Cypriot banks and a 9.9 per cent haircut to larger deposits. The haircut was the Cypriot side’s contribution to the deal (bail-in). After the Cypriot parliament rejected the deal on 19 March, a second agreement was reached on 25 March, which was later, on 30 April, ratified by the national parliament. The deal provided for a €10bn bailout, a series of austerity measures and a 47.5 per cent haircut of deposits exceeding €100,000 in Cypriot banks. The deal also included the shutdown of the second largest bank on the island, the Popular Bank of Cyprus (Laiki Bank), whose depositors lost all their ‘unsecured’ savings (i.e. those above €100,000) (Charalambous 2014: 10–18). The media selected for this study were the two daily newspapers with the highest circulation in the Republic of Cyprus at the time of research (as indicated by the journalists’ association after personal communication – there are no official data on newspaper circulation in Cyprus), Phileleftheros and Politis. These two newspapers are examples of the elite press, which holds a preeminent position when it comes to addressing the main political, . . . 145 . . .

Vaia Doudaki

social and economic issues on behalf of and for Cypriot society (see Christophorou, Şahin and Pavlou 2010). Journalism in Cyprus has traditionally been characterized by weak professionalism and close relations with the political establishment (Christophorou 2010), often grouped according to the left-right polarization. This polarization, fed also by the Cyprus Problem, traverses politics and culture (Charalambous 2014: 46) and significantly impacts on the media. Alternative media, which may offer different visions of the Cypriot society, are not highly visible and do not reach a large part of the Cypriot public (Voniati, Doudaki and Carpentier in review). Because the aim of the study was to look into how ‘neutral accounts’ of events perform the ideological functions of the discursive construction of reality, opinion-related news texts were excluded from the analysis, which dealt only with news reports. The analysis was based on a previously developed model for identifying legitimation mechanisms that had been used for the study of Greek mainstream media (Doudaki 2015), which was revised to serve the needs and specificities of this study. Discourse analysis, informed also by the general principles of textual analysis (Wodak and Meyer 2009; Titscher et al. 2000; Hsieh and Shannon 2005), was employed to locate the discursive legitimation mechanisms and their constituents. Although the coding and analysis took the pre-existing model into consideration, coding remained open to allow new categories to flow from the data inductively (Kondracki and Wellman 2002). More particularly, in the initial legitimation mechanisms scheme, naturalization comprises symbolic annihilation (omission, trivialization, condemnation), mystification and simplification (Doudaki 2015). In the revised model that comes out of the present analysis, moralization (see also Van Leeuwen 2007) replaced simplification, having emerged as an important legitimizing component in the case of Greek-Cypriot media (see Table 6.1). Simplification was absorbed, in the revised model, by the other legitimizing components. Objectivation, in both cases, consists of expertise, institutional sourcing, quantification and reification. These elements will be introduced and elaborated one by one in the analysis that follows.

Findings and Analysis Each of the two main legitimation mechanisms identified by the analysis – naturalization and objectivation – is constructed around a set of legitimating components (see Table 6.1) that do not exist in isolation but rather are activated in combination, strengthening each other and co-amplifying their symbolic power in the crisis representation. . . . 146 . . .

Discourses of Legitimation in the News

Table 6.1. Legitimation Mechanisms in the News Discourse on the Cypriot Bailout Naturalization

Objectivation

Symbolic annihilation

Expertise

(omission, trivialization, condemnation)

Institutional sourcing

Mystification

Quantification

Moralization

Reification

Naturalization One of the functions of ideology is to transform ‘uncertain and fragile cultural resolutions and outcomes into a pervasive naturalism’ (Willis 1977: 162). This ‘naturalism’ allows ideologies to become common sense and to be perceived as ‘the way to do things’ or as ‘the way things are’ (Tuchman 1978a: 196). For the purposes of this analysis, naturalization relates to the ways in which information, opinions and ideas presented in the news about the economic crisis and the bailout agreement signed between the Republic of Cyprus and the troika, went largely unchallenged, treated as a natural given. Thus the naturalized discourse about the crisis, woven around symbolic annihilation, mystification and moralization, created an inescapable reality on the conditions of the crisis and their optimal handling.

Symbolic Annihilation Symbolic annihilation involves the mechanisms of omission, condemnation and trivialization (Tuchman 1978b: 17), through which the media mis- or under-represent social groups and practices, symbolically disempowering and marginalizing them. Systematic mistreatment of groups and individuals by the media can even contribute to their erasure from public consciousness (Means Coleman and Chivers Yochim 2008: 4922). From a constructionist perspective, Berger and Luckmann define nihilation as negative legitimation: ‘Legitimation maintains the reality of the socially constructed universe; nihilation denies the reality of whatever phenomena or interpretations of phenomena do not fit into that universe’ (1967: 114, emphasis in original).

Omission Scholars have often pointed out the structural difficulty of presenting complex economic phenomena in the news with adequate comprehensiveness . . . 147 . . .

Vaia Doudaki

(Martenson 1998; Huxford 2008; Tuchman 1978a). This predicament is related to a systematic omission of certain facts, information and opinions about the economic phenomena and the repeated presence of others that gives rise to a particular universe of the crisis ( Jensen 1987), mostly with neoliberal traits (Doudaki, Boubouka and Tzalavras 2016; Tracy 2012). In the case of the Cypriot economic crisis, combating money laundering and reducing the country’s banking sector were presented as prerequisites for any financial assistance deal with the troika. However, the news texts studied largely omit mention of the actual constituents and proofs of money laundering, the criteria by which the size of the banking sector is measured, and the specifics of the promoted reduction in the banking sector. This finding may appear surprising, since the domestic media might have been expected to attempt to delegitimate the accusations of money laundering addressed by the international actors or temper the claims about the size of the Cypriot banking sector. In practice, it may reflect the domestic media’s own criticism of the Christofias government’s economic policy. As Charalambous (2014: 75) notes, ‘the media and the business lobby’s turning against the government created a climate of enormous hostility towards Christofias and his policies, which grew stronger as the crisis accelerated and impacted more on the Cypriot economy’. It might also have been related to journalists’ attachment to a minimal number of institutional sources, whose exclusively presented views or policies were often not counterbalanced by those of other sources, not even institutional ones. In one of the very few cases where the size of the banking sector is estimated, it is mentioned that ‘the member of the ECB [ Jörg Asmussen] notes that the banking sector of Cyprus should be shrunk in a coordinated way, since it is “seven to eight times bigger than the size of the country”’ (18 February 2013, Phileleftheros 2). But what the size of the country is and how exactly it is estimated are left unexplained. Rather, through the exclusive presence of this European actor and his quantified argument, the need to reduce the Cypriot banking sector is legitimated not only as a policy, but as an incontestable fact. A discursive schema that is very often employed to legitimize actions, policies and views, especially at critical moments, and functions via exclusion, is the dilemma. A dilemmatic discourse omits vital information and obscures much more behind the relations it creates between the two components of the dilemma. The main dilemma presented in the news was that Cyprus had to choose between memorandum and bankruptcy. The variations of the dilemma were, in different combinations, on the one hand, ‘haircut’, ‘restructuring of the banks/economy’, ‘salvation of the economy/ . . . 148 . . .

Discourses of Legitimation in the News

country/banks’, ‘approval of the deal’, ‘sanitization’, and on the other hand, ‘non-approval of the deal’, ‘destruction’, ‘collapse’, ‘disorderly bankruptcy’, ‘exit from the euro’. In a news text about the employers unions’ reactions to the first deal the Republic of Cyprus reached with the troika (which the Cypriot parliament did not approve), the general director of the Cyprus Industrialists and Employers Federation, Michalis Pilikos, presents the dilemma the government faced: ‘the issue was to avert the collapse since the choices were either consent or disorderly bankruptcy’ (17 March 2013, Phileleftheros). This news text has only two sources, highly quoted, the second one being the president of the Cyprus Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Fidias Pilides, who also confirms the dilemma. Anything that falls outside consent or bankruptcy does not exist in this exclusionary reality regarding the economic conditions in the country and the options available to the Cypriot government. A similar common discursive schema is the conditional discourse. It also creates an exclusionary reality through omission, via the selection of the condition’s constituents. The analysis pointed to variations of a conditional discourse structured around the argument that if an agreement is not reached/signed/ratified, the country will go bankrupt/be destroyed/ exit the euro. For example, in a news text concerning bank restructuring, entitled ‘Sanitization or Disorderly Bankruptcy’ (Politis, 23 March 2013), the terms of the condition of bankruptcy and its avoidance are given, through anonymous sources, by the governor of the central bank of Cyprus: ‘According to the same sources, the governor warned … that if the framework for sanitizing the credit and other institutions is not approved [by the parliament], on Tuesday Cyprus will end up in disorderly bankruptcy’.

Condemnation The mainstream media’s coverage tends to present any models that propose to organize society and the economy in alternative (non-neoliberal) ways as hazardous for the economy and a country’s future and prosperity (Titley 2012; Mylonas 2014). Also, the international media have systematically portrayed countries of the periphery that face major financial difficulties, like Greece, in negative stereotypical ways (Mylonas 2012; Tracy 2012). Similarly, Cyprus was steadily presented as a ‘paradise of money-laundering’ (mostly of Russian funds) (Rettman 2013; Dettmer and Reiermann 2012). Interestingly enough, with the exception of some sporadic attempts, the domestic media did not vigorously contest this accusation or the troika partners’ descriptions of Cyprus as a ‘casino economy’ and a country whose ‘business model is dead’. As in the case of omission, here too this finding . . . 149 . . .

Vaia Doudaki

might be connected to the mainstream media’s sourcing practices, which not only privilege institutional sources but use a minimal number of them, as tokens of objectivity. Furthermore, it is frequently observed that when the EU, the IMF and other institutions negotiate with countries in economic trouble, the media, using mainly elite sources’ rhetorics, condemn these countries and their actors as unwilling to collaborate or hold them responsible for any collapse of the negotiations. For example, when the EU partners were insisting that the Republic of Cyprus agrees to an evaluation of its banking sector by a private company, the country was uncritically presented as guilty of money laundering, and the Cypriot government’s resistance to the private evaluation as proof of its guilt. The domestic newspapers often attacked AKEL’s policy, adopting the criticism of the troika partners and accusing Christofias of indecision and stalling over signing an agreement. One of the relevant articles declared: ‘The persistent and absolute refusal of the government’s members in Nicosia to examine the issue is blocking everything’ (11 February 2013, Politis). This information, which was attributed to anonymous ‘sources from Brussels’, is an example not only of exclusive institutional sourcing, but also of the media fully adopting the argumentation of these EU sources.

Trivialization In the news, major issues regarding the economy, crises and their constituents are often trivialized through their context-free reproduction and repetition (Doudaki et al. 2016). In the case of the Cypriot economic crisis, major elements regarding its fundamentals were trivialized – treated as unimportant everyday information not worth examining and mentioned only ‘en passant’, while focusing on other topics. Trivialization – which to a certain degree is unavoidable, since journalists do not have time or space to elaborate on previously presented information when covering the news – creates an order of (un)importance of the information presented, sketching a map of evaluative relations. Claims that Cyprus is a money laundering paradise, or that its exposure to Greek government bonds is the reason for its unviable debt, were regularly repeated as background information or as initial causes of the crisis to be connected with the updated facts and information, without further explanation, in an uncontested and naturalized fashion via a spiral of automated reproduction. An example is provided by a news story about the already mentioned agreement between the Republic of Cyprus and the

. . . 150 . . .

Discourses of Legitimation in the News

troika regarding the evaluation of Cyprus’s banking system by a private company (14 March 2013, Phileleftheros). The news report presents information about the companies that have expressed interest in conducting the evaluation and the banks that will be subject to inspection. Also, according to the article, the private company that will undertake the task needs to be chosen very quickly, as the deal with the troika (whose assistance will be preconditioned by the evaluation of the country’s banking system) needs to be reached before the end of the same month. There is no reference to what the evaluation will involve, even though the headline of the article is ‘Agreement on the Terms of Reference for the Money Laundering’, which is treated as trivial information while the focus is on the rushed inspection of the Cypriot banking system; hence the report treats the claim that the banking system is unhealthy and needs to be sanitized as a given fact.

Mystification As previous research regarding the news coverage of economic issues has shown (Huxford 2008; Doudaki 2015), important information about the causes of economic crises and the structures that nurture them is often blurred or half-implied, creating a universe where impersonal, external forces of extreme power impose conditions that humans have no control over. In this mystified universe, where the acceptance of neoliberal policies is presented as inescapable (Titley 2012; Preston and Silke 2014), accountability or agency regarding the crisis appears as unimportant or irrelevant. In an article entitled ‘Chaos without Deal’ and subtitled ‘Vamvakides: The Scenario of a Euro-exit Is Destructive’ (20 March 2013, Phileleftheros), the text’s sole source, a bank analyst, supports the agreement based on a dilemmatic argument: ‘Without a deal Cyprus would be immediately confronted by a right-out default which would finally lead to an exit from the euro … the scenario of a euro exit [is] destructive, since it would demolish the Cypriot economy.’ Neither the analyst nor the journalist provides any information on why, how and when the default would lead the country to exit from the euro, or why the euro-exit would destroy the Cypriot economy. Thus the threat is very clear, but its conditions are completely blurred. Similarly, on other occasions, institutional sources unquestionably state via conditional discourse that if the banks closed, ‘chaos would follow’ (17 March 2013, Phileleftheros) – but give no information on what chaos would entail – and that if there is no deal, ‘domino conditions, with unprecedented consequences’ would follow (ibid.), yet readers never learn what these consequences are.

. . . 151 . . .

Vaia Doudaki

Repeating that destruction can be averted only by an agreement signed between the Republic of Cyprus and the troika, without mentioning the elements of disaster, creates an obscured environment where a lot is missing and much more is implied, and where disaster becomes a unspoken phantom with supernatural, non-human powers.

Moralization Moral evaluations or ethically charged language appear to be a strong mechanism of legitimation. Moralization broadly refers to the use of language that is connected to, or evokes, moral codes and values to describe and explain a situation or phenomenon. Moral evaluations are often not explicit, and though they trigger moral concepts, they are usually ‘detached from the system of interpretation from which they derive’ (Van Leeuwen 2007: 97) and are instead recognized on the basis of one’s common-sense cultural knowledge (ibid.: 98). Legitimating discourses make extensive use of norms and values. ‘They implicitly or explicitly state that some course of action, decision or policy is “just” within the given legal or political system, or more broadly within the prevalent moral order of society’ (Van Dijk 1998: 256). As the analysis of the news texts revealed, sources and journalists appearing in the news use moral language to both legitimize and delegitimize the bailout agreement and its constituents. Especially at critical moments (e.g., after the decision on the haircut was reached by the EU, when the deal had to be ratified by the Cypriot parliament, etc.), news texts are heavily populated with moralizing language. The people and the country, the historical past and the future, and the banking system and the economy, are the three thematic areas in which a moralizing discourse is most often encountered. The People/Nation/Country References to the Cypriot people or the Cypriot nation, portrayed as having special qualities, are often present. The appeal to serve the interests of ‘our nation’ because ‘the country is above all’ (01 August 2012, Politis) and ‘it is our responsibility to support’ it (ibid.) is made at critical moments. In this context, patriotism is presented as not only a duty but also a moral value of the Cypriot people (‘the Cypriot people love their country and are responsible’) (ibid.). Efforts to delegitimize the deal often present the country as a victim paying for others’ mistakes (through the practice of transferring blame, e.g. the Greek debt is at fault, or the banks, or the previous government), or as having been ‘dragged to painful decisions’ (via the argument that there is no alternative). . . . 152 . . .

Discourses of Legitimation in the News

The History, the Past, the Future Historical references are also frequently used to connect the past with the present and the future. They have a genuine moralizing dimension, since they invoke stories and events from the past that are connected to either heroic or disastrous moments in the nation’s history. The connection is not so much with the events themselves, but more with what they signify and the discourses of national identity and therefore of heroism, victimhood, etc. that these events invoke. Everybody is familiar with the major historical events, so a reference to them does not need to be detailed, which is extremely useful in journalistic writing; one need only call upon such an event, and its symbolic value (of heroism, resistance, suffering, etc.) is transferred to the event to which it is related. The historical references in the news texts studied include comparisons of the devastating colonial past of Cyprus or the Turkish invasion of the island in 1974 with the present situation, usually through the ‘Cyprus-asvictim’ narrative. Also, descriptions attempting to delegitimize the process of negotiations and the pressure the European partners put on the Republic of Cyprus refer to the ‘German axis’ or simply to ‘the axis’, often without stating what the countries of the axis are. Appealing to the future has a moralizing dimension too, since the deal on the memorandum is presented as one that will determine the future of the present and next generations: ‘[This decision] relieves the future generations from the burdens of repaying the debt… It is a decision that leads to the historical and definite salvation of our economy’ (17 March 2013, Politis). The Banking System and the Economy The language used to describe the economic conditions in Cyprus, its endemic problems and the measures taken is highly moralized, as is often the case with language about the economy and the financial system (Mylonas 2012, 2014; Graeber 2011). According to the troika officials, the Cypriot economy’s biggest problem was its ‘unhealthy’ banking system’s function as a ‘moneylaundering paradise’. Presenting the ‘sanitization’ of the banking system in Cyprus as a measure that would lead to a ‘healthy’ economy, the troika partners stipulated it as a fundamental condition of any agreement for financial support. In the related news coverage, journalists at first sometimes treated the references to money-laundering with some distance by using quotation marks, or accompanying them with phrases such as ‘alleged’ or ‘so-called’. Gradually, however, they came to be taken for granted and trivialized – especially in the final phase of negotiations and agreement on the deal, by which time they were accepted as a natural reality, even by the domestic media. . . . 153 . . .

Vaia Doudaki

Another frequently employed moralizing discourse is that of ‘fairness’. The measures taken are regularly described as fair or unfair, often without much context, as the invoking of un/fairness is treated as an axiomatic value. Attempts to delegitimize the haircut, for example, describe it as an ‘unfair, hostile, vengeful decision’, as a ‘punishment’ and an ‘irresponsible’, ‘dangerous decision’ through which ‘all depositors are victimized’ (17 March 2013, Phileleftheros). Conversely, in cases where the legitimation of the haircut is attempted, it is described as fair, since ‘the ones that have a lot will pay’, and there will be a ‘fair distribution of weight’ and ‘fair sharing of the burden for foreign depositors’ (22 March 2013, Phileleftheros). Very often, these moral evaluations have also a didactic dimension, portraying what should or should not happen through direct or indirect comparisons (Van Leeuwen 2007: 99–100). For example, comparisons with Greece and the argument that ‘the Greek tragedy should not be repeated’ (16 March 2013, Politis) appear frequently.

Objectivation Objectivation, the second main legitimation mechanism identified in the study, concerns the ways in which information and ideas are presented in the news and (re)constructed ‘as real and objective facts that cannot be contested, having a quasi-scientific ontological status’ (Doudaki 2015: 10). Through institutional sourcing, expertise, quantification and reification – the constituents of objectivation – specific interpretations regarding the crisis and the bailout get the stamp of neutral factuality and are presented as objective incontestable reality.

Institutional Sourcing The news produced by mainstream media is dominated by elite sources, actors and officials who largely occupy ‘powerful and privileged institutional positions’ (Hall et al. 1978: 58). Together with the information, these sources, as the ‘primary definers’ (ibid.), also offer their preferred interpretations of the meaning of news. Especially when it comes to news about the economy, the co-orientation between the journalists and their sources’ views and interpretations of the economy and the crises, is found to be very strong (Manning 2013; Mercille 2014). For example, an article that followed the agreement on the haircut of bank deposits presents the bank restrictions as having been approved by the parliament, so as to ‘secure the smooth functioning of the system’ (26 . . . 154 . . .

Discourses of Legitimation in the News

March 2013, Politis) (readers are never informed which ‘system’ this is). After enlisting the decided restrictions on cash withdrawals and bank transactions, the article ends by stating that ‘the minister, or, in some cases, the governor [of the central bank can take any other restrictive measure they] consider necessary, under the circumstances, for reasons of public order or/and public security’. As this is the final sentence of the article, it bestows on the statement a definite factual dimension, even though the appeal to public order and security is ambiguous and could in practice entail serious restrictions of people’s freedoms, an aspect that one would expect journalists to investigate. Yet the text makes no reference to what these restrictive measures might be, and these two officials’ unlimited power to impose restrictions is treated as natural, and therefore unquestioned, by the two journalists who co-authored the article. The government and the bank-related sources (the Central Bank of Cyprus, the Ministry of Finance, the President of the Republic and the Cooperative Central Bank), as the only voices in the story, are used through their exclusive presence to legitimate the imposed measures and trivialize the issue as an ordinary one, while the consequences of these measures for the private and corporate economy and for Cypriot society were, in fact, severe. The article also gives information on the government’s decision to prolong the banks’ closure (what is described in the text as ‘banking holiday’) for an indefinite period of time. According to the article, it was decided to extend the ‘banking holiday’ as long as necessary following the expression of concerns about a potential ‘bank run’, should the banks open ‘too soon’. Through the absence of any other voice in the text, the journalists and the newspaper adopt the frame offered by the government and bank officials – that is, that the extension of the banks’ closure was necessary to protect the banking system. Thus the measure is granted unquestioned legitimacy, through institutional sourcing, as the only way to protect the country’s economy from collapse.

Expertise Experts appear very frequently in the news, especially to discuss issues whose comprehension requires special knowledge or controversial issues of social concern that divide the public opinion. Experts fulfil the criteria of source credibility, ‘since they are seen as combining the qualities of knowledge and independence. They are able to provide expert or scientific knowledge, which journalists often lack, and are considered unattached to specific interests’ (Doudaki 2015: 11). Also, the authority of experts is a proof of their objectivity, so their presence is an easy way to bypass the . . . 155 . . .

Vaia Doudaki

main journalist principles of cross-checking information or including a variety of opinions in the news. In the news texts that were studied, experts were used both to legitimate and delegitimate the deal proposed by the troika. Delegitimizing attempts were observed during the negotiations between the troika and the Cypriot side, but once agreement was reached, the news reports contained hardly any strong critique of the deal. For example, prior to the deal, Politis refers to an article by the Financial Times in which analysts give their expert opinion on the provisions that a deal for financial support should entail (9 March 2013). Six experts cited in the Financial Times article are mentioned in the Politis article, four of them directly critiquing the potential imposition of a levy on depositors and two proposing alternatives. One of the analysts is presented as saying: ‘while the issue of the losses for the depositors is still on the table, the question is why the politicians took so much effort to harm the chance of Cyprus to pay-off its debts, by “killing” its banking sector. She notes that the Cypriot banks lost 1.7 billions of deposits in January, because of the rumours’. Several days later, in the period after the first deal was rejected and before the final agreement was reached, an article based on a Merrill Lynch report evaluating the first deal started as follows: The worst scenario for Cyprus is the non-approval of the draft law that includes the haircut of the bank deposits, according to the analysis of the American bank Merrill Lynch. ‘There is high risk that the troika does not offer an alternative plan to the Cypriot side and in this case the country faces even exit from the eurozone, something that would cause severe shocks to the eurozone region’, stresses bank analyst Athanasios Vamvakides. (20 March 2013, Phileleftheros)

Later on, the analyst critiques the troika for the haircut decision. However, the article’s headline and lead stress the need to approve the deal at all costs, subjecting everything else to this imperative. Non-expert readers are not in a position to contradict this expert’s evaluations, which are presented as neutral data – especially since Vamvakides is the exclusive source in the news text. This article is also an example of how the newspaper profits from the ‘compensatory legitimation’ (Albæk 2011: 338) of expertise to ‘objectify’ the frame it has already chosen to adopt.

Quantification Numbers, statistics and other data, such as poll results and economic figures, are often used in the news ‘more as tools of persuasion than aids to comprehension’ (Goddard 1998: 87), objectifying and legitimating political . . . 156 . . .

Discourses of Legitimation in the News

decisions and economic policies. In the previous example of the experts giving their assessment of what the deal should include while critiquing the possibility of a haircut (9 March 2013, Politis), we read: ‘[Analyst] Gizem Kara stresses that the leaders of the eurozone would lose their credibility but also that the gain would be small, since 48 per cent of the state bonds are held by Cypriot banks. Their haircut would increase their recapitalization needs.’ Later on, another analyst is mentioned: ‘Ms Mullen notes that some of the measures under discussion, like the haircut in the deposits, may not even be necessary. She says that despite the reduction of the real GDP per approximately 2 percent last year, the government managed to limit the deficit of the budget to 5 percent of the GDP, from 6.3 percent in 2011.’ These data gain added value from being cited by experts, who are already perceived as possessing special knowledge and independent judgement. Thus they are used as an apparatus of expert knowledge, helping to create a structure of objectivity that does not leave much room for contestation. Had they been used by a marginalized group, for example, they would probably not have been given the same importance. Another article (17 March 2013, Politis) attempts to legitimate the first deal on the haircut. In this text, unnamed government sources are cited to explain what was averted with the deal (which was rejected two days later by the Cypriot parliament): ‘The percentage that is now slashed is equal approximately to the interest of 18 months for those citizens that have surplus and the levy will be implemented once, since it is not a repeated charge.’ The reference to the eighteen months is used to rationalize the extent of loss, which, according to this argument, is not large and concerns only those who can afford it. In the first example, experts use data to warn of repercussions for the wrong decisions (haircut of bonds and deposits), while in the second, governmental sources are used to legitimate the decision of the haircut. In both examples, as in many other cases, economic policy decisions are legitimated or delegitimated through the use of numbers. Quantified data serve thus the creation of objective realities of the Cypriot crisis and its outcomes.

Reification Reification is the process through which the products of human activity are perceived ‘as if they were something else than human products – such as facts of nature, results of cosmic laws, or manifestations of divine will’ (Berger and Luckmann 1967: 89). It can be seen ‘as an extreme step in the process of objectification, whereby the objectivated world loses its compre. . . 157 . . .

Vaia Doudaki

hensibility as a human enterprise and becomes fixated as a non-human, non-humanizable inert facticity’ (ibid.). The news frequently dissociates the economy from human enterprise, treating it as a sphere concerning figures and indices but not humans. One implication of this practice is that economic activity is presented as ‘largely independent of the control of individuals’ (Goddard 1998: 77) – that is, stripped of human agency. Thus, by having been portrayed as powerless to battle these ‘alien, reified’ forces (Tuchman 1978a: 213–14), the political and other institutional actors can be disconnected from the responsibility for the implemented economic policies. In one news text, an expert who is evaluating the deal Cyprus signed with the troika is quoted as saying that ‘the markets are feeling relieved since the agreement of Cyprus with the troika finally proved that the authorities have acted responsibly, even if this was done with delay’ (26 March 2013, Phileleftheros). ‘The markets’ in this case are presented as having a life of their own ( Jensen 1987: 17): they are entities outside human agency and control and even have feelings. In another example, following the elections that brought a new conservative government into power in the Republic of Cyprus, succeeding the previous left-wing one, ‘European officials’ express their satisfaction with the new government’s election and their trust that it will speed up the pace of negotiations that were stalled by the previous government (26 February 2013, Politis). At the same time, referring to the deal that must be reached, they stress that ‘the programme must “allow for a significant financial, fiscal and structural adjustment”. The programme “will provide, inter alia, for the close supervision of the measures that combat money-laundering and facilitate financial transparency, and of the measures’ implementation”’. As in the case of markets above, ‘the programme’ here is allocated independent agency as an entity with its own life, freeing from blame the political actors and institutions that are ‘responsible for creating the prevailing economic conditions’ (Huxford 2008: 15). Moreover, very often within these reified structures, the specific measures decided and imposed are described vaguely, and are usually positively signified by both the political actors who decided on them and the journalists and media who reproduce them verbatim without further examination, while the questions of what these measures actually require and what implications they have for society, are left undiscussed. Within this context, in the aforementioned example, ‘the programme’ will provide for ‘structural adjustments’ and ‘financial transparency’. Other examples describe the requested measures and actions as ‘fiscal sanitization’, ‘strengthening of growth’, ‘measures of stabilization’, ‘structural reforms’, ‘provision

. . . 158 . . .

Discourses of Legitimation in the News

of liquidity’, ‘stabilization and rationalization of the banking system’, and ‘correction of the banking sector’. Similarly, the haircut is described as a ‘contribution by depositors’, ‘tax of solidarity’, ‘obligatory investment’, ‘stability contribution’, and a ‘solidarity and stability levy’.

Conclusions Informed by the critical discussion on the ideological aspects of news, this study explored the legitimizing support the mainstream media provide for the hegemonic discourse about the economic crisis and its treatment. The field of study was the Republic of Cyprus and its mainstream press, and the case study concerned the coverage of events related to the bailout agreement the country signed with the troika. This agreement, which included the unprecedented decision of slashing, by almost half, all the deposits exceeding €100,000 in Cypriot banks (except Laiki Bank, where all deposits above €100,000 were lost), was highly disputable at the political, economic and ethical levels, and there was therefore a strong need to legitimate it in the (domestic, especially) public opinion. The analysis, based on a previously developed model of identifying legitimation mechanisms (Doudaki 2015), showed how the leading domestic press reconstructed the crisis ‘reality’ as an incontestable fact through the use of two main discursive mechanisms: naturalization and objectivation. Employed by the two newspapers studied (Phileleftheros and Politis), these mechanisms supported and promoted the legitimation of the hegemonic discourse over the crisis and its optimal treatment by creating an environment where the bailout agreement and the haircut of deposits appeared as ‘necessity and fate’ (Berger and Luckmann 1967: 91) in the country’s salvation. A delegitimizing discourse was articulated mostly around the Christofias left-wing government, which was accused of inefficient economic policy and mishandling of the negotiation process, a criticism addressed both by the domestic media and the economic elites (Charalambous 2014: 75). Trapped in its own contradictions and inconsistencies, the AKEL government came across as unable to articulate an alternative discourse over the crisis and was largely de-legitimated by the dailies studied. Also, during the negotiations prior to the agreements, there were some delegitimizing attempts that echoed the concerns and views of the domestic political and economic elites; however, after the agreements were reached (both the ini-

. . . 159 . . .

Vaia Doudaki

tial one rejected by the Cypriot parliament and the one that was approved and finally implemented), they were consciously legitimated and supported by the newspapers studied. The media under study, either unable or unwilling to offer alternative frameworks for understanding the crisis, largely reproduced the relevant elite discourses. Apart from promoting specific ideologically driven visions of society, this institutional view of reality also has another implication: the absence and marginalization of alternative understandings of the crisis is related to a similar or even stronger absence of the citizens’ voices. The media discourse about the crisis is produced by elites and addressed to (political, economic and media) elites. Meanwhile citizens, whom the media supposedly primarily address, are not present in the crisis reality, either as actors or as sources in the news. This absence conveniently assists the legitimation of the elite political actors’ decisions and policies regarding the treatment of the crisis, which appear in the news largely unchallenged by ‘disturbing’ voices. As the analysis showed, the newspapers studied not only facilitated but actively participated in the construction of the hegemonic discourse over the economic crisis, its outcomes and its treatment, via the legitimation of the neoliberal ideology as a natural and unavoidable reality, rather than a political decision with very specific ideological characteristics. This hegemonic discourse was supported by the delegitimation of alternative accounts of the crisis, largely through their absence, and by the reconstruction of the crisis as an issue of high policy, rendering social implications mainly invisible and the citizen’s agency irrelevant.

Acknowledgements I wish to thank Angeliki Boubouka, Christos Tzalavras and Irini Avraam for their valuable help in this project.

VAIA DOUDAKI is Associate Professor of Media and Communication Studies at the Department of Informatics and Media of Uppsala University. Her research focuses on the study of representations, identities and discourse, within and through media. Her most recent work, on the discourses and framing of the economic crisis, has been published in journals such as Journalism, European Journal of Communication and Javnost – The Public.

. . . 160 . . .

Discourses of Legitimation in the News

Notes 1.

All the relevant news stories published in the two newspapers studied were located using the keywords ‘memorandum’, ‘loan agreement’, ‘troika’ and ‘haircut’. Following systematic random sampling of news reports, filtering of those that had more than one legitimizing component, and application of criteria of balance between the two newspapers, 131 texts were finally selected and systematically analysed. 2. The news text excerpts presented in the analysis have been translated from Greek into English.

References Albæk, E. 2011. ‘The Interaction between Experts and Journalists in News Journalism’, Journalism 12(3): 335–48. Althusser, L. 1971. Lenin and Philosophy and Other Essays. London: New Left. Berger, P.L., and T. Luckmann. 1967. The Social Construction of Reality. New York: Anchor Books. Chakravartty, P., and D. Schiller. 2010. ‘Neoliberal Newspeak and Digital Capitalism in Crisis’, International Journal of Communication 4: 670–92. Charalambous, G. 2014. Political Culture and Behaviour in the Republic of Cyprus during the Crisis. Nicosia: PRIO Cyprus Centre. Christophorou, C. 2010. ‘Greek Cypriot Media Development and Politics’, Cyprus Review 22(2): 235–45. Christophorou, C., S. Şahin, and S. Pavlou. 2010. Media Narratives, Politics and the Cyprus Problem. Nicosia: Peace Research Institute Oslo, PRIO Cyprus Centre. Deetz, S. 1977. Democracy in an Age of Corporate Colonization. Albany: State University of New York Press. Dettmer, M., and C. Reiermann. 2012. ‘Bailing Out Oligarchs: EU Aid for Cyprus A Political Minefield for Merkel’, Spiegel, 5 November. Retrieved 8 August 2015 from http://www .spiegel.de/international/europe/german-intelligence-report-warns-cyprus-not-combat ing-money-laundering-a-865451.html. Doudaki, V. 2015. ‘Legitimation Mechanisms in the Bailout Discourse’, Javnost – The Public 22(1): 1–17. Doudaki, V., A. Boubouka, and C. Tzalavras. 2016. ‘Framing the Cypriot Financial Crisis: In the Service of the Neoliberal Vision’, Journalism: Theory, Practice and Criticism. Published online before print. doi: 10.1177/1464884916663601. Doudaki, V., et al. 2016. ‘Dependency, (Non)Liability and Austerity News Frames of Bailout Greece’, European Journal of Communication 31(4): 426–45. Dow, B.J. 1990. ‘Hegemony: Feminist Criticism and The Mary Tyler Moore Show’, Critical Studies in Mass Communications 7: 261–74. Entman, R.M. 2004. Projections of Power: Framing News, Public Opinion, and US Foreign Policy. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Fairclough, N. 1995. Critical Discourse Analysis: The Critical Study of Language. London: Longman. ———. 2003. Analysing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Longman. Forgacs, D. (ed.). 2000. The Antonio Gramsci Reader. London: Lawrence and Wishart. Gitlin, T. 1980. The Whole World Is Watching: Mass Media in the Making and Unmaking of the New Left. Berkley: University of California Press. Goddard, P. 1998. ‘Press Rhetoric and Economic News: A Case Study’, in N.T. Gavin (ed.), The Economy, Media and Public Knowledge. London: Leicester University Press, pp. 71–89. Graeber, D. 2011. Debt: The First 5,000 Years. New York: Melville House. Gramsci, A. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks of Antonio Gramsci, ed. and trans. Q. Hoare and G. Nowell-Smith. London: Lawrence & Wishart. . . . 161 . . .

Vaia Doudaki Hall, S. 1979. ‘Culture, the Media, and the “Ideological Effect”’, in J. Curran, M. Gurevitch and J. Woollacott (eds), Mass Communication and Society. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage, pp. 315–48. Hall, S., et al. 1978. Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Hsieh, H.-F., and S.E. Shannon. 2005. ‘Qualitative Health Research: Three Approaches to Content Analysis’, Qualitative Health Research 15(9): 1277–88. Huxford, J. 2008. ‘The Ghost in the Economic Machine: Reifying Recession in the News Narrative’, 94th Annual Convention, National Communication Association, San Diego, CA, 21–24 November 2008. Jensen, K.B. 1987. ‘News as Ideology: Economic Statistics and Political Ritual in Television Network News’, Journal of Communication 37(1): 8–27. Kondracki, N., and N. Wellman. 2002. ‘Content Analysis: Review of Methods and Their Applications in Nutrition Education’, Journal of Nutrition Education and Behavior 34: 224–30. Laclau, E., and C. Mouffe. 1985. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso. Manning P. 2013. ‘Financial Journalism, News Sources and the Banking Crisis’, Journalism 14(2): 173–89. Martenson, B. 1998. ‘Between State and Market: The Economy in Swedish Television News’, in N.T. Gavin (ed.), The Economy, Media and Public Knowledge. Leicester: Leicester University Press, pp. 112–33. Means Coleman, R., and E. Chivers Yochim. 2008. ‘Symbolic Annihilation of Race’, in W. Donsbach (ed.), The International Encyclopaedia of Communication Studies. Oxford: WileyBlackwell, pp. 4922–24. Mercille, J. 2014. ‘The Role of the Media in Sustaining Ireland’s Housing Bubble’, New Political Economy 19(2): 282–301. Mylonas, Y. 2012. ‘Media and the Economic Crisis of the EU: The “Culturalization” of a Systemic Crisis and Bild-Zeitung’s Framing of Greece’, tripleC 10(2): 646–71. ———. 2014. ‘Crisis, Austerity and Opposition in Mainstream Media Discourses of Greece’, Critical Discourse Studies 11(3): 305–21. Preston, P., and H. Silke. 2014. ‘Ireland: From Neoliberal Champion to “the Eye of the Storm”’, Javnost – The Public 21(4): 5–23. Reese, S.D. 1990. ‘The News Paradigm and the Ideology of Objectivity: A Socialist at the Wall Street Journal’, Critical Studies in Media Communication 7(4): 390–409. Rettman, A. 2013. ‘German Opposition Threatens EU Aid for Cyprus’, euobserver, 9 January. Retrieved 8 August 2015 from https://euobserver.com/economic/118672. Scott, J. 2001. Power. Cambridge: Polity Press. Titley, G. 2012. ‘Budgetjam! A Communications Intervention in the Political-Economic Crisis in Ireland’, Journalism 14(2): 292–306. Titscher, S., et al. 2000. Methods of Text and Discourse Analysis. London: Sage. Tracy, J. 2012. ‘Covering “Financial Terrorism”’, Journalism Practice 6(4): 513–29. Tuchman, G. 1978a. Making News: A Study in the Construction of Reality. New York: Free Press. ———. 1978b. ‘Introduction: The Symbolic Annihilation of Women by the Mass Media’, in G. Tuchman, A.K. Daniels and J. Benet (eds), Hearth and Home: Images of Women in the Mass Media. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 3–38. Van Dijk, T. 1998. Ideology: A Multidisciplinary Approach. London: Sage. Van Leeuwen, T. 2007. ‘Legitimation in Discourse and Communication’, Discourse & Communication 1(1): 91–112. Voniati, C., V. Doudaki, and N. Carpentier. In review. ‘Mapping Community Media Organisations: A Methodological Reflection’, Journal of Alternative and Community Media. Williams, R. 1977. Marxism and Literature. New York: Oxford University Press. Willis, P. 1977. Learning to Labour: How Working-class Kids Get Working-class Jobs. Franborough: Saxon House. Wodak, R., and M. Meyer (eds). 2009. Methods for Critical Discourse Analysis. London: Sage.

. . . 162 . . .

C

Chapter 7

HALLENGING THE SACREDNESS

OF ‘THE MEDIATED CENTRE’

The Shift in Media Discourses on Bicommunal Relations in Cyprus after the Crossing Points Opening in 2003

Christiana Karayianni

Introduction On 23 April 2003, Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots, after having lived separately for decades due to long-lasting bi-communal conflict and the Turkish invasion of Cyprus in 1974, were informed that the barricade that physically separated the southern and northern parts of Cyprus would be opened to allow crossing to the other side. During the long period of separation, communication about GreekCypriots and Turkish-Cypriots was mainly generated by mainstream media, which, in the segregated public sphere of the island, resulted in the dominance of negative discourses about the other (Şahin 2011; Anastasiou 2002). For most people the 2003 event was primarily a ‘mediated’ experience rather than an immediate one, and was received with shock by the Greek-Cypriot community.1 According to Demetriou (2007: 994), this feeling of surprise was caused by what she calls ‘the moment a new subjectivity leapt into existence’ – in other words, by the moment at which something that was once impossible is realized, following the collapse of the previously existing limits of possibility. This chapter suggests that the limits that collapsed in the ‘momentous leap’ that Demetriou describes consisted not only of the physical obstruction of free movement prompted by the 1974 conflict, but also of those

Christiana Karayianni

limits’ construction as ‘the objective reality’ by the Greek-Cypriot media. This is what makes an analysis of the media coverage of the crossing points opening in 2003 important and still relevant. Those limits collapsed when the physical obstructions were removed, but also when the ‘myth of the mediated centre’ fell apart and a new so-called reality was created by and for the Greek-Cypriot public. The myth of the mediated centre, further elaborated later on, is related to the belief that the media have a privileged relationship with the ‘centre of society’ and their natural role is to represent and frame this centre, i.e. the society’s values and way of life (Couldry 2003: 45). The ‘reality’ that the Greek-Cypriot media had constructed around the issue of free movement, which communicated the idea that free movement was impossible while the Cyprus Problem remained unsolved, and which had been dominant during the period of separation, was actually one more myth. Otherwise said, during the period of separation the media established the mythical reality that the possibility of free movement across the Green Line and co-habitation among Greek- and Turkish-Cypriots would only materialize with the solution of the Cyprus Problem. At the same time, the hegemonic discourse of the Greek-Cypriot public sphere presented the solution of the Cyprus Problem as a desire of the GreekCypriot community made unreachable by the Turkish-Cypriots’ unwillingness to cooperate in reaching an agreement and living together in peace, so that the solution – and consequently the free movement of the two communities – looked impossible, or at most possible only in a reality very different from the current one. Put less abstractly, the public sphere of Cyprus had been segregated, so the media that had been the basic mediator of communication about the two communities not only developed discourses that territorialized the relationship between Greek- and Turkish-Cypriots but also established those discourses as the reality and the only possibility, confirming the existence of a mediated centre. However, the media should not be seen as the sole providers of access to society’s ‘centre’ of knowledge; one could rather argue that they are among the institutions that share this privileged role (Couldry 2014: 884), with the state or the political establishment being another (main) one. Furthermore, as the analysis suggests, the myth of the mediated centre was challenged, at least temporarily, when the media (and the political elites) were found initially unprepared to territorialize the event of the crossing points opening within the established hegemonic discourse and the personal experiences of the people were proven different from the reality constructed until then.

. . . 164 . . .

Challenging the Sacredness of ‘the Mediated Centre’

Hegemonic Narratives and the Myth of the Mediated Centre This chapter adopts a cultural studies approach that sees media as mechanisms of representation and exclusion for the purpose of producing and maintaining dominant ideologies in societies. This approach was introduced by cultural theorists like Stuart Hall (1980) and James Carey (2009 [1989]), and later on by others who took up their work (Couldry 2000; Curran and Morley 2006). Hall (1980) was amongst the first to build upon Gramsci’s (1971) work on social order, to suggest that active consent is crucial in maintaining social order and that this is achieved through the cultural leadership of the dominant groups in a society (Curran and Morley 2006: 132). In line with this argument, the media are one of the main societal institutions where cultural and ideological leadership is practised, not through imposed propaganda but through the circulation and legitimation of its hegemonic discourses. Media work as a public arena where political, economic and cultural elites share their views and interpretations of social phenomena and where the shared beliefs and main narratives of societies are reproduced and protected (Hall et al. 1978). Examining the claim that the media ‘offer privileged access to a common reality to which we must pay attention’ (2003: 66), Couldry develops the concept of ‘the myth of the mediated centre’ (ibid.: 45), which stems from the belief that there exists a centre of truth – a centre that contains the truth, the norms and ideals of this world – and that the media naturally own the right to represent that centre because they have a special relationship with it. Couldry argues that this privileged relationship is a myth, not in the sense that the information the media publish is untrue, but rather in that the media uphold the idea that they represent this centre of truth, even though what they really represent is the centre of the norms constructed by, and within, a certain society and/or culture. According to Couldry, the media are not the only institutions that try to sustain the myth that they are privileged providers of access to society’s supposed ‘“centre” of value, knowledge and meaning’ (2014: 884). Other institutions like governments and political parties also claim to offer this access, as they depend on the existence of ‘a mediated centre to underwrite their “space of appearances”’ (ibid.). Some other authors see instead the existence of not one, but several (mediated) centres operated by the main institutions of knowledge and power in societies (see e.g. Postill 2006: 186). Focusing on the event of the opening of the crossing points in 2003 in Cyprus, which was a significant moment in the bi-communal history of the . . . 165 . . .

Christiana Karayianni

island, and adopting Couldry’s analytical concept of ‘the myth of the mediated centre’, this chapter examines the media’s role in creating mediated realities and the tensions that might arise when the public’s own experiences of these realities diverge. The media’s active role in the representation, construction and protection of national identities has recurrently been acknowledged (Anderson 2006; Tsagarousianou 1997). Especially the mainstream media are seen as reproducing nationalistic ideals and helping to maintain them by presenting divisive discourses of the ‘self’ versus the ‘other(s)’ (Kostarella 2007; Tsagarousianou 1997). The Cypriot media in both the south and the north have not escaped the norm. Assisted by their relations of proximity with the state, they have covered the Cyprus Problem mainly through a nationalistic lens, validating shared beliefs about the ‘other’, cultivating the myth of the impossibility of coexistence and thus feeding the division (Christophorou, Şahin, and Pavlou 2010; Bailie and Azgin 2008; Şahin 2014). Since any examination of the media’s representations of social phenomena needs to take the historical context into account (as Carey [2009: 17] argued, news – and communication in general – ‘exists solely in historical time’), this chapter will turn briefly to the historical context in which the decision to allow for the free movement across the Green Line was taken.

The Historical Context of the Free Movement Era During the period 1974–2003, the two main Cypriot communities were in a state of complete physical separation due to restrictions on freedom of movement on the island. Only a few cases of sustained physical contact between people of the two communities in Cyprus are known: the village of Kormakitis, where Maronite communities live and identify themselves as Greek-Cypriots under the Turkish-Cypriot administration; Karpasia village in the Turkish-Cypriot–controlled area, where some (mostly elderly) Greek-Cypriots have decided to stay on their properties; and Pyla, a village located within the UN-controlled Green Line, where both Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots continue to live together as they did before the island’s division (Loizos 2006). Additionally, in 2000 a small number of Roma who consider themselves Turkish-Cypriots crossed the checkpoints to the Greek-Cypriot–controlled area in order to live in a place where, they claimed, there was less discrimination and more economic opportunity

. . . 166 . . .

Challenging the Sacredness of ‘the Mediated Centre’

(Constantinou 2007: 263). Otherwise, until 2003 contact between people of the two major communities was possible only outside Cyprus, for example in London, where there are many immigrants from both communities, or at major European and American universities that enrol both Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot students (Loizos 2006; Broome 2005). It is important to note, however, that in the Greek-Cypriot public sphere, even these very few cases of physical contact with the other community occurred under a shadow of fear that manifested itself in the interpretation, or even the accusation, that the people of the Republic of Cyprus were recognizing a Turkish-Cypriot state in the north. On 23 April 2003, the Turkish-Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash announced the easing of restrictions on free movement across the Green Line in Cyprus. This meant that after twenty-nine years of living in separation, GreekCypriots and Turkish-Cypriots were able not only to visit the ‘other side’ – the north and the south respectively – but also to have some sort of faceto-face interaction with each other. Prior to this measure, in a substantial uprising the Turkish-Cypriot community had protested against the status quo and demanded the Cyprus Problem be solved so that both communities could join the EU under a reunited status. Thus, in an attempt to control this uprising, the Turkish-Cypriot authorities took the measurement of free movement across the Green Line.

Selection of Media Material and Methodological Framework This chapter concerns an analysis of three Greek-Cypriot newspapers’ front-page headlines on the first five days of the crossing points opening (22–26 April 2003), supplemented, where relevant, by analysis of their respective news texts. In order to provide a broad picture of the newspaper discourses during that period, the selected newspapers maintain distinct ideological positions. Simerini 2 is the voice of the right and of the rightwing party DISY (Δημοκρατικός Συναγερμός, Democratic Rally). Haravgi, founded in 1956, is ideologically linked to the left-wing party AKEL (Ανορθωτικό Κόμμα Εργαζόμενου Λαού, Progressive Party of Working People). Finally, Phileleftheros,3 founded in 1955 as a non–party-affiliated newspaper, was at the time of research the newspaper with the largest circulation figures. The chapter also analyses a second type of media material: televised news reports of the first five days of the crossing points opening, broadcast by CyBC (Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation), the Greek-Cypriot public

. . . 167 . . .

Christiana Karayianni

television broadcaster. CyBC was chosen over private television stations to permit in-depth study of the mediated official discourse on the free movement measure, given the Cypriot public broadcaster’s close affiliation the with the government and the political system. It is acknowledged that inclusion of more television stations in the research might have facilitated a broader investigation of the issue. However, the focus on CyBC’s coverage seemed relevant for this study, as the public broadcaster is seen as largely echoing the political elites’ official discourses on the Cyprus Problem and thus participating, together with these elites, in representation of Cypriot society’s ‘mediated centre’. The method of analysis used in this research falls between generic discourse analysis and critical discourse analysis. According to Antaki (2008: 433), generic discourse analysis does not treat the authors of the analysed texts as ‘simple informant[s], reporting unvarnished facts’, but rather ‘as producing (or reproducing) themes or representations’. Thus, the attempt to extract these themes and/or representations produced (or reproduced) in the texts analysed, aims to uncover the elements of social practices which are embedded in the material. At the same time, the method used in this research derives also from the school of critical discourse analysis (CDA). The main difference between generic and critical discourse analysis is that analysts using the latter openly state at the outset that the specific discourses that are to be analysed produce or reproduce some sort of dominance. As Antaki (2008: 434) puts it: ‘They [critical discourse analysts] approach texts from a certain prior point of departure, often an avowedly political one. That is the critical in the term. “The way we approach these questions”, says van Dijk, one of the doyens of CDA, “is by focusing on the role of discourse in the (re)production and challenge of dominance” … (van Dijk 1993: 249; emphasis in the original)’. The discourse analysis in this research is critical in terms of the way it approaches the analysed media material. A certain type of dominance prevails in the historical context of the period examined, and the study focuses on how the different discourses produced by the different media (re)produce and/or challenge this dominance. The definition of dominance in discourses is similar to van Dijk’s (1993: 249–50), that is, it refers to the exercise of social power that results in social inequality. But rather than focus predominantly on the elites, institutions and/or groups that exercise this power, this research examines how this power is exercised – almost invisibly – in certain media discourses on other discourses, and how these discourses manage to legitimize and naturalize social inequality. . . . 168 . . .

Challenging the Sacredness of ‘the Mediated Centre’

Findings and Analysis As expected, the partial opening of the crossing points on 23 April 2003 was extensively covered in the Greek-Cypriot press and on television. This discussion begins by examining the ways three Greek-Cypriot newspapers reported the measure of free movement during the first days of the crossing points opening. Thus the focus, in analysing the newspaper discourses, is on how the event itself shook the myth of the impossibility, until resolution of the Cyprus Problem, of free movement across the Green Line or coexistence between the Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots. Then the discussion moves to analyse the CyBC’s coverage, looking at how this event challenged the myth of the mediated centre.

Newspaper Coverage and the Myth of Impossible Coexistence On 22 April – a day before the free movement measure was applied – Simerini and Haravgi seem to present the decision of the Turkish-Cypriot leader, Denktash, in a similar way: as a new ‘trick’ of Turkish politics. Simerini has this headline in its front page: ‘New Tricks of Denktash: He Announces Unilateral Measures for Greek-Cypriots’ and Turkish-Cypriots’ Movement between Occupied and Free Areas’. Haravgi’s headline on the same day is ‘Denktash’s Craftiness. National Council: The Decision of the Occupation Regime Is Illegal’. Both newspapers’ headlines express a sense of disbelief about the actual application of such a decision, a fear of what Demetriou (2007: 994) calls ‘the leap into the existence of a new subjectivity’, meaning that the Greek-Cypriot media’s realization of this measure would cause the until then established ‘reality’ (of Denktash being unreliable and irreconcilable) to look indeed like subjectivity. Even though Phileleftheros also highlights that the announcement of the measure is nothing but a decision by Denktash, implying some degree of disbelief about its actual realization, it chooses an explicit headline: ‘Denktash Opens the ‘Borders’: From Tomorrow Wednesday, Serdar Said’.4 The next day’s front-page headlines more clearly illustrate the alarm among the Greek-Cypriot public sphere. On the actual day of the crossing points opening (23 April 2003), Simerini ran the front-page headline ‘Extortion for Recognition. Denktash: The Measures of Movement Target the Proximity between the “Two States”’. More headlines on Simerini’s inside pages include: ‘Imminent Danger of Chaos. Denktash Plays Games with the Confidence Building Measures’ and ‘Tourists at Our Homes’ (ibid.). . . . 169 . . .

Christiana Karayianni

Again, Haravgi’s headlines adopt a similar tone: ‘The Turkish-Cypriot Press Is Referring to a New Manoeuvre by Denktash. The occupation Regime Decided to Abolish the Prohibitions of Movement from and to the Occupied Areas’, ‘Denktash: “The States Have the Right to Take Decisions regarding Their Neighbours”’, ‘Y. Omirou:5 “Gesture to Impress from the Occupation Regime”’ and ‘The European Union Has No Comment on Denktash’s Announcements’. Finally, Phileleftheros features the following headlines on its front page: ‘Fears of Provocation. Government: The TurkishCypriots Are Free to Come but with Security Measures’. On this day, all three newspapers seem to adopt the discourse that one possible result of free movement would be the recognition of the northern part of Cyprus as an independent Turkish-Cypriot state, presented as a dangerous prospect. To increase the appearance of this danger, Simerini and Haravgi use Denktash’s statement referring to a measure that will create better relations between the two states. This analysis suggests that during the period examined, as at other historical moments in Cyprus, the newspapers expressed the hegemonic ideological discourse about the Greek-Cypriot nation state (Christophorou et al. 2010; Anastasiou 2002; Karayianni 2013). As has also been evident in other studies, at specific historical moments in Cyprus the newspapers’ discourse is not simply a sensationalist discourse intended to produce news and encourage sales. It is also a discourse that tries to territorialize Greek-Cypriots’ and Turkish-Cypriots’ reality (Bailie and Azgin 2008; Şahin 2014, 2011). In this specific historical context – the period when the crossing points were opened – the ideological discourse is even more obvious. As is clear from the headlines above, at this particular moment all three newspapers, despite their different political stances, adopt the same discourse about the actions of the political leader of the other community. Thus, apart from a degree of sensationalism meant to boost sales higher than competitors’, these media seem to articulate an ideological discourse about the Greek-Cypriot nation state that largely coincides with the hegemonic political discourse. This can be explained by the fact that until this point, the discourses produced by newspapers in the Greek-Cypriot public sphere have maintained the idea of intolerance on the part of the Turkish-Cypriot side. They attempt to do so in this case as well. Demetriou (2007: 989) argues that the event of the crossing point opening went beyond historical temporality to produce a different kind of temporality that changed the political subjectivity in Cyprus. This new temporality also forced the newspapers’ discourse to comply with this new subjectivity. The radical challenging of the thus far established media discourses regarding this new temporality will be dis. . . 170 . . .

Challenging the Sacredness of ‘the Mediated Centre’

cussed further when the television news reports on the opening event are examined. Meanwhile, the headlines discussed in this section are illustrative of the newspapers’ ‘struggle’ to resist compliance with the new subjectivity. On 24 April 2003, the day after the opening of the crossing points, Simerini has as the front-page headline: ‘With Passports to Our Homes. Government’s “No” to Denktash’s Travel Documents’. Other titles in its inside pages include ‘The Turkish-Cypriots Want to Re-enter the Republic of Cyprus. They Are Asking for Identification, Birth Certificates and Passports’ and ‘Where Are You Going? Tourists in Your Own Homes?’ Haravgi runs the following headlines on its front page: ‘The Solution Is What We Are Asking For’, ‘Yesterday’s Impenetrability. Mass Arrivals by Turkish-Cypriots and Increased Visits by Greek-Cypriots to the Occupied Areas’, and ‘The Wall Did Not Fall’. Headings in Haravgi’s inside pages include ‘Turkish-Cypriots Came to see Friends…’, ‘“Freedom at Last”, a Turkish-Cypriot Was Shouting’ and ‘They [i.e. the Pan-Cyprian Movement of Citizens] Are Warning of Denktash’s Trap’. Articles in Phileleftheros bear titles such as ‘Denktash Asks Also for a “Visa” Now’, ‘We Are Coming Back, Pentadaktyle,6 [hold on] a Little Bit Longer, ‘Four Thousands Got In and Out’ and ‘They [Turkish-Cypriots] Took a Breath of Freedom’. A significant observation pertaining to the above is that the discourse of the first two newspapers focuses mainly on the Turkish-Cypriots’ crossing, thereby undermining Greek-Cypriots’ experience of free movement. Both Simerini and Haravgi describe the desires and feelings that attend the Turkish-Cypriots’ crossing. One of the titles in Simerini has a dual function: on the one hand, it conveys that some Turkish-Cypriots wish to belong to the Republic of Cyprus, and thus that they recognize the legitimate state; while on the other hand it implies that they intend to exercise their rights as Cypriot citizens without complying with the Greek-Cypriots’ desired solution. Haravgi’s headlines have a similar dual function, but they express it differently. The newspaper refers to mass arrivals of Turkish-Cypriots and ‘increased visits of Greek-Cypriots’, mentioning that the ‘Turkish-Cypriots came to see friends’, which implies that they want a solution just as ‘we’, the Greek-Cypriots, do. Yet it also reminds its readers that their objective should be the solution, and that they should not be satisfied by the realization of this measure because it could prove hazardous. At the same time, Haravgi’s focus on the Turkish-Cypriots’ movement rather than the Greek-Cypriots’ suggests that Turkish-Cypriots prefer the Republic of Cyprus over the northern republic – a reference to Turkish-Cypriots’ unhappiness with the leadership and the living conditions in the north. The discourse in Phileleftheros does not differ much: it implies that Greek-Cypriots should not cross, since . . . 171 . . .

Christiana Karayianni

crossing amounts to recognition of the republic in the north, and that even though ‘we’, the Greek-Cypriots, have always welcomed Turkish-Cypriots to this side, the Turkish occupation forces have prohibited their movement. At the same time, another headline offers an explicit picture of the number of people from both communities who crossed. Thus, on the day after the opening of the crossing points, all three newspapers seem to struggle to maintain their old media discourse around the established belief that no progress on the Cyprus Problem will ever be possible because the Turkish-Cypriot side prefers to live apart. Yet on that same day, the newspapers’ usual coverage seems to be augmented with a new discourse that was not previously part of their daily representations. This new discourse moves the blame for the unsolved Cyprus Problem from the Turkish-Cypriot people to the leadership of the Turkish-Cypriot side. On Day 3, the majority of the front-page headlines in the three newspapers are still struggling to maintain the discourse of Denktash’s wily move towards recognition by focusing on issues like the requirement that Greek-Cypriots must show their passport to cross to the north, or the fear of drug trafficking from the north to the south. On this day, however, the front pages of Haravgi and Phileleftheros feature headlines that seem to promote different discourses. More specifically, Haravgi runs the headline ‘AKEL: A Crack in the Wall of Separation’ over a brief article explaining the why the left-wing party AKEL regards the realization of the free movement measure as positive evolution towards a solution to the Cyprus Problem. The Phileleftheros headline is a bit less eloquent but still seems to express a discourse different from those produced before: ‘The Government [of the Republic of Cyprus] Announces Brave Measures: President’s Orders to Facilitate the Turkish-Cypriots’ Movement Here [southwards]’. The article describes measures that the government plans to announce, attempting to highlight the Greek-Cypriot side’s goodwill in the restart of negotiations. Meanwhile, headlines on Simerini ’s front page illustrate its struggle to maintain the idea that the free movement measure is a negative development for the solution of the Cyprus Problem. For example: ‘He [Denktash] Plays with Our Desire: Denktash Forms Artificial Borders and Troubles the GreekCypriots’. Similarly: ‘Mayors of Kerynia: [We say] No to Being Tourists in Our Own Homes’. Also: ‘The Crossing Points Are Uncontrolled: Fears of Drug Transportation to the Free Areas [the south]’. This hint of change in the media representations published on Day 3 in Haravgi and Phileleftheros becomes much more obvious on the next day’s front pages. Phileleftheros’ headline reads: ‘The Big Reversal: Unprecedented. The People Give a Different Direction to the News’. By printing a headline . . . 172 . . .

Challenging the Sacredness of ‘the Mediated Centre’

like this, Phileleftheros is in a way admitting to the reversal of the discourse it used to produce. The change in Haravgi’s discourse is also obvious, although its tone admits less: ‘People’s Struggle Will Bring the Resurrection’ (referring to the religious significance of the date: Greek-Cypriots were celebrating Easter on 26 April 2003), ‘He [Denktash] Was Scared of the People’s Flow [crossing to the other side]’. This difference in the way the two newspapers transition into providing their readers with more positive media representations regarding the free movement measure could be explained by the fact that Haravgi, due to its leftist ideology, was always more open towards the Turkish-Cypriot side and towards a Cyprus Problem solution leading to a bi-communal state. Phileleftheros, however, as a newspaper whose discourses are usually linked to the ones dominating the GreekCypriot public sphere, had to justify this change. The headline mentioned above provides this justification. As for Simerini – a newspaper that expresses the rightist ideology of DISY7 and produces the discourse of blaming the other side for the Cyprus Problem – a change in discourse seemed to be considerably more difficult. Simerini needed some time to move towards a discourse that presented the other side in a positive light. The celebration of Easter, and the consequent fact that newspapers were not published on 27 and 28 April 2003, gave Simerini the extra time it needed and the opportunity to change its discourse without looking unreliable to its readers. Thus, Simerini went from hinting at this change on 26 April by referring to the measures that the government of the Republic would take in order to facilitate the Turkish-Cypriots’ movement southwards, to focusing almost exclusively on the positive aspects of the free movement measure on its front page on 29 April.

TV Coverage as a Challenge to the Myth of the Mediated Centre The analysis now turns to examining how Greek-Cypriot public television, CyBC, covered the opening of the barricades. The reports analysed here were broadcast in CyBC news bulletins titled ‘The Wall Cracks’ and lasted approximately five minutes each. These reports constitute only one part of CyBC’s coverage on the opening of the crossing points; during the news bulletins CyBC also aired brief discussions with guests – mainly politicians – held in between reports in the studio, or over the phone. These however, were not available for analysis because CyBC archives only the reports that are broadcast in a news bulletin and not the news bulletin per se. . . . 173 . . .

Christiana Karayianni

In the report that CyBC broadcast on Day 2 of the barricades’ opening, the reporter emphasizes the discomfort experienced by those who tried to cross to the other side – and especially the Turkish-Cypriots’ discomfort – due to the slowness of the Turkish-Cypriot authorities manner of proceeding. The CyBC reporter notes that ‘[t]he pseudo-state’s services have been too insufficiently staffed today, which resulted in the creation of endless queues of people and cars. … Hundreds of Turkish-Cypriots suffered for hours while the occupying authorities’ administrative process was very slow. … Showing passports, stamping, paying five pounds insurance cover for big cars, four pounds cover for small cars, discomfort. …’ The points highlighted in the above excerpt imply that the Turkish-Cypriot authorities – intentionally or not – caused discomfort even during a happy event like this one. However, the report includes many messages of hope deriving mainly from statements by people in both communities and is expanded by the reporter’s comments too. And even if the report was intended – via warnings, innuendoes and the tone of the reporter’s voice – to create suspicion about the ‘real’ intentions of the other side, it also included statements, together with actual images of Turkish-Cypriots, that transmitted a positive idea about the people of the other community. The coverage was not live, so the television footage was edited; nonetheless, the moving images, in combination with the statements, exposed Greek-Cypriots to an ‘alive version’ of the ‘other’ that allowed space for interpretations besides the ones they had already been exposed to. This television report on Day 2 of the barricades’ opening includes four statements by three Turkish-Cypriots and three statements by three GreekCypriots, and it is worth mentioning that they take up the lengthiest part of the five-minute report. All seven statements are characterized by positive feelings about the opening of the crossing points and about the other community, but a statement made by one of the Turkish-Cypriots interviewed merits closer examination. She says: What we lived yesterday and what we saw yesterday is different; there are feelings of deep friendship and I believe that we can live together. I’m very happy and pleased about this.

This statement is significant for two reasons. First, a Turkish-Cypriot is stating that what she saw and experienced on the other side differed from what she had thought before, implying that her real experience differed from the ‘reality’ constructed by those who, until then, had the role of mediating the process of communication between the two communities – including, apart from the media, the politicians and the educational . . . 174 . . .

Challenging the Sacredness of ‘the Mediated Centre’

system. This could suggest that the reality that the Turkish-Cypriot authorities had constructed for Turkish-Cypriots was not the same as the one the Turkish-Cypriots were actually experiencing. At the same time it was a statement that presented Greek-Cypriot viewers with a humanized image of the ‘other’ that had been missing from the hegemonic discourse of the Greek-Cypriot public sphere – an image of a human being characterized by positive feelings and desires similar to those of the Greek-Cypriots. For the eldest viewers, this image came to validate possible nostalgic memories of coexistence, while for younger viewers it demolished the existing stereotypes of the evil enemy. Demetriou argues that the events prior to the opening of the barricades did not explain the feeling of surprise that the opening caused for Greek-Cypriots, but she notes that ‘the fact that it was [surprising] shows that there was no way in which it could have properly been understood other than as a totally shocking event’ (2007: 995). This surprised feeling is illustrated by the statement of a Greek-Cypriot who was queuing to cross to the north, as presented in a CyBC report on the third day of the opening (26 April 2003): This is something much too surprising and of course we are shocked, we are very anxious; yes [it is because of] the suddenness, the unpreparedness; [something] that you think that will never happen … suddenly they tell you that you can go and see your house and personally all these years I didn’t want to go at all. Now I have an enormous desire to go there.

In the context of Demetriou’s comment, the above statement suggests that the Greek-Cypriots were in shock at the opening because the constructed reality they formerly lived in excluded the possibility of such an event. The contradiction in the Greek-Cypriot crosser’s two last phrases (‘personally all these years I didn’t want to go at all. Now I have an enormous desire to go there’) could be explained by the ‘reality’ in which she used to live, which, with its physical and mental limits of possibilities, ‘imposed’ on her an unwillingness to go to the other side. The collapse of those limits and the confrontation of a ‘new reality’ caused the shock and allowed her desire to be transformed. Another statement in the Day 5 report, by a Greek-Cypriot who crossed to visit Kerynia, is worth noting: ‘What is happening today is unbelievable and I think it proves that they wrongly kept us [Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots] apart for about 30 years or so and I think it is time for this place [Cyprus] to get reunited.’ This statement is significant for three reasons: First, it expresses again the shock of the Greek-Cypriots as they attempt to interpret the opening event; second, it indicates the realization that . . . 175 . . .

Christiana Karayianni

the realities the two communities inhabited while they were separated were something constructed, and third, it is an alternative discourse that implies that the Greek-Cypriot community’s suffering was not caused by the ‘other’ – the Turkish-Cypriot community – but by ‘them’ (‘they kept us apart’), as the Greek-Cypriot said, perhaps meaning the power-holders of both sides. The quotes included in this section are examples of the ‘non-institutionalized’ experience that Greek-Cypriots had upon the realization of the free movement measure. As Demetriou contends (2007: 996), ‘concepts like “country” and “authorities” as discursive tools of subjection were suspended’ during the period of the barricades’ opening, because the state was absent. The media have a role in the absence or presence of the state, according to Couldry’s ‘myth of the mediated centre’: the media are supposed to have the representative role of the ‘centre’, be it the state or another power structure that the media attempt to legitimize. In other words, during the opening, the state, along with other power structures that assign meaning to such ideas as country and authorities, was absent because most of the media were unable to legitimize their discourses. When Demetriou writes about the ‘absence’ of the state, she means that the state did not do what it usually does, that is, to territorialize. ‘Territorialization’ is a psychoanalytical term coined by Lacan, and in its strict sense it describes the process by which the mother, through breast-feeding, maps the infant’s erogenous zones (Holland 1999: 19). Here the term is used in the way its reversed term, ‘de-territorialization’, was firstly metaphorically employed in the social register by Deleuze and Guattari to ‘define the freeing of labor-power from specific means of production’ (Holland 1999: 19) and then brought up by Couldry in his attempt to provide post-structuralist positions against social order (2003: 10–11). When the barricades opened in Cyprus in 2003, the state was absent, in the sense that a Greek-Cypriot’s crossing to the other side was outside the actions mapped as possible by the authority, outside the ‘reality’ territorialized by the state. The suggestion here – that the media and specifically television have a role in the collapse of the ‘myth of the mediated centre’ and the de-territorialization process – is identifiable in CyBC reports, even when ‘the state re-emerged’, as Demetriou contends (2007: 997), and attempted to re-territorialize the event in the days following the opening of the barricades. The re-territorialization was attempted when the Greek-Cypriot government allowed the people to decide ‘freely’ whether to cross or not, even as it increasingly moralized the crossings by making clear to GreekCypriots the acceptable and unacceptable reasons to cross. Demetriou de-

. . . 176 . . .

Challenging the Sacredness of ‘the Mediated Centre’

scribes this moralization process as well-represented in the Greek-Cypriot media; it is also evident in the press examples analysed in the previous section. However, in the television reports considered here, the moralization process was attempted much less than it was in the press. That is, whereas the attempt at moralization and re-territorialization was present from Day 1 in the press reports, it appeared in the television report only on Day 3 of the opening and it seems to have gradually disappeared again through Day 5. The television report from Day 3 – unlike those of Days 1 and 2 – includes no interviews or statements from Turkish-Cypriots who attempted to cross to the south; instead it focuses exclusively on how the Turkish-Cypriot authorities convolute – deliberately, the report implies – the desire of the Greek-Cypriots to cross, in order to visit their homeland in the north. On Day 5, however, while the newspapers continue the re-territorialization process, the television reports seem to withdraw from that process. The sample below, from the Day 5 report on the opening, implies that television reports have ‘failed’ at this ‘moment of leap’ to represent ‘the centre’ successfully and re-territorialize by moralizing the crossings. The journalist’s commentary in that day’s report is indicative of this ‘failure’: The solution did not arrive yet but the signs of the last few days spread optimism. … During a walk at Kerynia’s port nobody is able to designate who is a Greek-Cypriot and who is a Turkish-Cypriot, there is no discomfort at all. On the contrary, the myth of the unfeasibility of coexistence collapses since everyone, young and older feel the wind of the new era.

The reporter’s words express nothing that could be considered an attempt to moralize the crossings. On the contrary, instead of moralizing comments, the reporter’s words impart the message that the crossings have proven that the notion of the impossibility of peaceful coexistence between the two communities is unreal – nothing but a myth. Interestingly, by referring directly to this myth, which was created and maintained in the dominant Greek-Cypriot public sphere, the reporter thus challenges, perhaps even rejects, the established discourse of the mediated centre, without though referring to its ‘creators’ or ‘maintainers’. The newspaper Phileleftheros made a similar comment on the same day (28 April 2003), writing: ‘proving Denktash wrong that Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots cannot live together’. The difference, however, between the comment in the press report and the televised one is that the newspaper reporter once again maps reality for Greek-Cypriots by making Denktash responsible for that myth, whereas the television reporter leaves viewers to decide who takes the blame for the myth’s creation. . . . 177 . . .

Christiana Karayianni

Concluding Note This chapter has explored print and broadcast Greek-Cypriot media coverage of the opening of the crossing points of divided Cyprus in April 2003, aiming to identify and analyse the discourses that were articulated on the issue of bi-communal relations at a moment when the Greek-Cypriot public’s experience of the event was found to differ from the ‘reality’ that the media had constructed during the period of separation (1963–2003). The analysis showed that the newspapers studied initially attempted to maintain the hegemonic discourse of division that the political elites and the media had constructed for the previous forty years. But at that historical moment, ‘the myth of the mediated centre’ was severely challenged and at times even collapsed as people realized how very different their current reality was from the one built by the media, at least up to that moment. Within this context, the media’s attempt to territorialize Greek-Cypriot reality with the discourse they had created about the ‘other’, mainly through the ‘myth of the impossibility of coexistence’, was voided and became inactive and momentarily invalid. In detail, the newspapers were at first reserved and struggled to maintain their initial discourse of separation; gradually, however, they shifted their discourses to accommodate the new reality. But after the passage of several days, they again reconstructed images of separation that shuddered along with ‘the mediated centre’ in those days. This re-territorialization attempt, documented in the newspaper reports during the period of research, was less evident in the television reports. Rather, the television reports themselves challenged the ‘myth of the mediated centre’ by shifting their discourse and following the flow of people’s experiences of crossing. These findings, of course, are not generalizable, either in relation to the specific television station or to the medium of television. It should not be overlooked that CyBC, as the public broadcaster of the Republic of Cyprus, maintains strong affiliations with the political system and especially with the governments. Also, the material analysed was only part of CyBC’s news coverage of the event. The news representations of the event also included interviews and discussions with politicians and other societal elites whose views did not necessarily align with the public’s feelings and experiences. Both the newspapers’ shifting discourses and the television’s clearer challenge of the hegemonic version of reality point to certain observations. One is that when confronted with an unprecedented event, the media, political and other elites, and the public were all the more challenged to understand and interpret the event because the opening of the crossing points . . . 178 . . .

Challenging the Sacredness of ‘the Mediated Centre’

signified the collapse of a physical barrier that until then had also helped to maintain a mental and psychological barrier against the ‘other’. The media and the other institutions that attempt to territorialize society’s ‘centre of knowledge’, for instance political elites, were at first unprepared to accommodate the new event in the so far hegemonic discourses about the ‘other’. The ‘myth of the mediated centre’ risked collapse. Yet despite some delay, attempts at re-territorialization gradually re-emerged. One last observation concerns the differences between newspaper and television coverage. Though these differences cannot be generalized, they can have a twofold interpretation. First, televised images allowed a ‘live’ idea of the ‘other’ to be transmitted for the first time. This idea of presenting the human face of the ‘other’ was strong and could not be ignored. And second, discourses circulating in societies cannot be always and fully controlled, even when the ones that claim to offer the public access to society’s ‘centre of truth’ usually hold privileged positions in the construction of this truth.

CHRISTIANA KARAYIANNI holds a PhD in media and cultural studies, University of Sussex, UK (2011). She pursued her BA (Hons) in graphic design in 2003 and continued her education at the University of the Arts, where she received an MA in interactive media. Since 2005, she has been a postgraduate associate at the Department of Journalism, Communication and Media at Frederick University in Cyprus. She regularly reviews articles in the field of media in Cyprus for international academic journals. Her research interests and publications focus on the use and impact of media in societies with conflict.

Notes 1.

It was in fact a big surprise for both the Greek-Cypriot and the Turkish-Cypriot community (Şahin 2011), but this study focuses on how Greek-Cypriot media covered the opening of the barricades and is thus mainly concentrated on the experience of the Greek-Cypriot community. 2. In the early 1980s, Simerini passed into the ownership of one person who went on to form the media conglomerate DIAS. Today, it is owned by the DIAS Publishing Company and is believed to express the conservative right-wing voice of the Greek-Cypriot community. Its main line regarding efforts to resolve the Cyprus Problem is rejectionist, and in this context it appeals also to sections of the rejectionist centre parties. . . . 179 . . .

Christiana Karayianni 3. Phileleftheros was widely perceived to express the views of President Makarios – and its popularity derives in part from that role, as non-party pro-Makarios newspaper. Today, it is still not linked ideologically to any political party. 4. The son of that period’s Turkish-Cypriot leader, Rauf Denktash. 5. Omirou was at that time the president of EDEK (Κίνημα Σοσιαλδημοκρατών ΕΔΕΚ, Movement for Social Democracy EDEK), a centre-left social democratic Greek-Cypriot political party. 6. Pentadaktylos is the northernmost mountain of Cyprus. 7. DISY is the largest right-wing party in the Republic of Cyprus.

References Anastasiou, H. 2002. ‘Communication across Conflict Lines: The Case of Ethnically Divided Cyprus’, Journal of Peace Research 39(5): 581–96. Anderson, B. 2006 [1983]. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London and New York: Verso. Antaki, C. 2008. ‘Discourse Analysis and Conversation Analysis’, in P. Alasuutari, L. Bickman and J. Brannen (eds), The SAGE Handbook of Social Research Methods. London: Sage, pp. 431–46. Bailie, M., and B. Azgin. 2008. ‘A Barricade, a Bridge and a Wall: Cypriot Journalism and the Mediation of Conflict in Cyprus’, Cyprus Review 20(1): 57–92. Broome, B.J. 2005. Building Bridges across the Green Line. Nicosia: United Nations Development Programme. Carey, J. 2009 [1989]. ‘A Cultural Approach to Communication’, in Communication as Culture: Essays on Media and Society. New York, Routledge, pp. 11–28. Christophorou, C., S. Şahin, and S. Pavlou. 2010. Media Narratives, Politics and the Cyprus Problem. Nicosia: Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO) Cyprus Centre. Constantinou, C.M. 2007. ‘Aporias of Identity: Bicommunalism, Hybridity and the Cyprus Problem’, Journal of the Nordic International Studies Association 42(3): 247–70. Couldry, N. 2000. Inside Culture: Re-imagining the Method of Cultural Studies. London: Sage. ———. 2003. Media Rituals: A Critical Approach. London: Routledge. ———. 2014. ‘Inaugural: A Necessary Disenchantment: Myth, Agency and Injustice in a Digital World’, The Sociological Review 62(4): 880–97. Curran, J., and D. Morley (eds). 2006. Media and Cultural Theory. Oxon: Routledge. Demetriou, O. 2007. ‘To Cross or Not to Cross? Subjectivization and the Absent State in Cyprus’, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute 13(4): 987–1006. Gramsci, A. 1971. Selections from the Prison Notebooks, Q. Hoare and G.N. Smith (eds). New York: International Publishers. Hall, S. 1980. ‘Cultural Studies: Two Paradigms’, Media, Culture & Society 2(1): 57–72. Hall, S., et al. 1978. Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, and Law and Order. London: Methuen. Holland, E.W. 1999. Deleuze and Guattari’s Anti-Oedipus: Introduction to Schizoanalysis. London: Routledge. Karayianni, C. 2013. ‘Photographing the Breaking of a Myth: Photo Reporting of the Crossing Points’ Opening in Cyprus’, in E. Duyan and A. Ozgur (eds), Visualisation and Urban History in Contemporary Photography. Istanbul: DAKAM, pp. 64–76. Kostarella, I. 2007. ‘Framing the Other: Turkey in the Greek Press’, GMI: Mediterranean Edition 2(1): 23–32. Loizos, P. 2006. ‘Bicommunal Initiatives and Their Contribution to Improved Relations between the Turkish and Greek Cypriots’, South European Society and Politics, 11(1): 179–94. Postill, J. 2006. Media and Nation Building: How the Iban Became Malaysian. New York: Berghahn Books. . . . 180 . . .

Challenging the Sacredness of ‘the Mediated Centre’

Şahin, S. 2011. ‘Open Borders, Closed Minds: The Discursive Construction of National Identity in North Cyprus’, Media, Culture & Society 33(4): 583–97. ———. 2014. ‘Diverse Media, Uniform Reports: An Analysis of News Coverage of the Cyprus Problem by the Turkish Cypriot Press’, Journalism 15(4): 446–62. Tsagarousianou, R. 1997. ‘Mass Communication and Nationalism: The Politics of Belonging and Exclusion in Contemporary Greece’, Res Publica 34: 271–92. Van Dijk, T.A. 1993. ‘Principles of Critical Discourse Analysis’, Discourse and Society 4(2): 249–83.

. . . 181 . . .

Chapter 8

T

HE CYPRIOT

‘OCCUPY THE BUFFER ZONE’ MOVEMENT Online Discursive Frames and Civic Engagement

Venetia Papa and Peter Dahlgren

Introduction Since the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the consequent political division into two entities, a permanent political crisis has gripped the island. This crisis has been characterized by continual animosity between the two sides and a political paralysis that impedes progress towards a mutually agreed settlement of the conflict. This paralysis has manifested itself within the relevant elite groups in both the Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot communities, in the international arena and among citizens on both sides. In this chapter we look at a rare civic initiative, springing from both sides of the divide, to engender some kind of political change. This initiative, called the Occupy the Buffer Zone (OBZ) movement, included efforts to physically occupy the UN (United Nations)-controlled ‘no man’s land’ – a zone of division that traverses the island – and, using both physical and online space (Facebook), to articulate an alternative discourse about the conflict and ways to overcome it. In this chapter we will focus on OBZ’s Facebook page while underscoring the importance of the reciprocal character of off- and online activities. We offer first a brief historical sketch of the situation and the status of OBZ as a social movement. After some methodological considerations we move on to build a descriptive profile of the OBZ movement by mapping the range of participants’ discourses in discussions within their official Facebook group. The claims and demands they advance regarding their politi-

The Cypriot ‘Occupy the Buffer Zone’ Movement

cal vision enable us to discern what type of social movement OBZ has been so far, and what its objectives are. We treat OBZ as a protest movement. Secondly, we analyse the OBZ movement in terms of its democratic goals and actual accomplishments. Also, we examine how and to what extent it has promoted citizen engagement among already committed activists as well as potential participants. Here our aim is to elucidate key factors that facilitated people’s engagement in the movement. To this end we make use of the framework of civic cultures, elaborated by one of the authors (Dahlgren 2009) and apply it to the Facebook discussions.

Emergence of the OBZ Movement Historical Background The island of Cyprus has historically been implicated in the shifting power relations of the eastern Mediterranean. During the early twentieth century the British took over Cyprus from the Ottoman Empire. After Cyprus finally gained its independence in 1960, relations between (and among) the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot populations were at times strained. Despite their peaceful co-existence on many parts of the island, conflict flared up in some areas. Various political actors in the newly independent Cyprus many times attempted negotiations, but the situation took a decisive turn in July 1974 with the Turkish invasion of the northern part of the island and the subsequent establishment of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), recognized only by Turkey. The invasion was traumatic: thousands were killed, and hundreds of thousands were forced to relocate south or north of the buffer zone (the ‘Green Line’) protected by the UN. In the four decades since, a number of diplomatic efforts to find a solution have met with failure. As diplomatic efforts remain stalled, small groups of civil society actors have attempted to challenge and redefine the present situation. One of them is the OBZ.

OBZ as a Protest Movement The Occupy the Buffer Zone movement made its presence visible through a series of events dedicated to protest against the political and global system. These events, held in the buffer zone of Nicosia from October 2011 to April 2012, had the objective of raising awareness about the Cyprus problem and promoting reunification of the island. The OBZ movement can be understood as a manifestation of contemporary protest; indeed, its ‘Occupy’ moniker links it directly to the global . . . 183 . . .

Venetia Papa and Peter Dahlgren

Occupy movement launched in 2011 (Ilican 2013). OBZ and other contemporary protest movements are the heirs of modern social movements (see e.g. Touraine 1978; Melucci 1996; Tilly 2004). What distinguishes the more recent movements from their predecessors is the centrality of digital media in their activities – which has led in turn to other developments, for example that evolution of the classic modes of collective action towards what is called ‘connective action’ (Anduiza, Cristancho and Sabucedo 2014; Bennett and Segerberg 2013) based on network relationships and on more individualized and personalized modes of engagement. All contemporary social and political movements make use of digital communication technologies, not least social media, but they also have, to varying degrees, a presence in physical space – often the street, in urban settings (Gerbaudo 2012). Since the mid-1990s there have been debates in the research literature over how and to what extent interactive digital media can enhance democracy, especially citizens’ participation. The views range from cheerfully optimistic (e.g. Shirky 2008; Jenkins, Ford, and Green 2013) to clearly pessimistic (e.g. Morozov 2011; Keen 2015). We take the view that such media can in fact have an empowering impact on democratic politics (as well as anti-democratic politics, alas); certainly their significant role in protest movements is well established (Castells 2012; Gerbaudo 2012). Thus, while many scholars insist that digital media offer no automatic track to political success, they underscore that these technologies can nonetheless play a very important role, not only in empowering citizens and facilitating political engagement, but also in engendering new forms of political participation and civic cultures (Dahlgren 2013; Papa and Milioni 2016; Postill forthcoming). To merely dismiss them is foolish. Yet analysis must be anchored in specific sociocultural and political circumstances, as the actual use and impact of communication technologies is highly dependent on such contingencies. Moreover, some features of these media – for instance their technical architecture – can severely delimit their positive democratic impact (see e.g. van Dijck 2013; Taylor 2014). While social media have become essential to political activism, observers have also noted the importance of activists interacting together in physical space (Papacharissi 2010). Thus social movements must be able to operate both on- and offline. Erika Effler (2010), for example, cites several authors to make the point that live, co-present social interaction – including rituals – is emotionally energizing and can strengthen collective identities. The ‘weak bonds’ of networks are an integral part of participatory politics, but stronger ones are necessary for effective political activity. Facebook and other social media cannot on their own generate the kind of strong bonds . . . 184 . . .

The Cypriot ‘Occupy the Buffer Zone’ Movement

required for social movements (ibid.). The experience of dealing with other activists/citizens by sharing views and practices in face-to-face meetings strengthens the bonds between activists and generates something essential for efficacious political agency, namely solidarity. In our view, nurturing and expanding solidarity so as to engage in effective politics requires more than clicking the ‘Like’ button. Hence, we underscore the importance of OBZ’s Facebook group but also emphasize the importance of the movement’s physical manifestations in urban space – and the complementarity between the two. Our interest in OBZ concerns not only the character of the politics and the activists’ political vision, but also the role social media play in shaping civic cultures, as well as the attributes of the specific civic cultures manifested in the OBZ Facebook group.

Methodological and Analytical Approach The study is based on data collected from written material published online by the Facebook group of the OBZ movement, defined on the group’s website (http://occupybufferzone.wordpress.com) as their official communication group on social media. At the time when the research was initiated, the group’s Facebook page had 2,408 likes. The Facebook group selected for analysis in the present study is seen as supplementary to the wider social movement that formed under the name OBZ. Before collecting the Facebook posts, we specified key protest events in time (dates) and space (area of social concern) (see Koopmans and Rucht 2002). To determine the periods that would be studied, it was necessary to first map all the protest events of the OBZ that took place as the movement took shape and made itself public through certain key actions between October 2011 and April 2012. Following the mapping, and using protest event analysis (PEA) techniques (see Della Porta and Diani 2006), we selected the major protest events within this period (see Table 8.1) according to three criteria: (1) the number of participants in the event-related posts (the threshold was thirty participants per post); (2) the form of action during the full period of protest from October 2011 to April 2012 (we selected only demonstrations and occupations); and (c) the mass media coverage, given that the media are expected to cover major protest events. The analysis focused on posts, mainly comments published by members on the wall of the group’s Facebook page, collected from within this period of dense activity. Most posts were published either in Greek or in English. For the purposes . . . 185 . . .

Venetia Papa and Peter Dahlgren

of the analysis, the posts in Greek were translated into English. Distinguishing between Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot posts was difficult because users went by nicknames; in any case their origin was not an element of analysis. The collection and analysis of comments followed the standard ethical practices of research online (see e.g. Markham and Buchanan 2012). The analysed material from the OBZ group’s Facebook page was publicly available and accessible, and was not subject to restricted access. Furthermore, quoted material presented here is completely anonymized and dissociated from the identity of its author(s). For the collection of the posts we employed a data mining technique based on NodeXL, an open source network analysis and visualization software used primarily for network analysis, and discovery and exploration of social media. The selected dates, on which online data were collected following specific protest events or on key dates of the movement, are provided in Table 8.1. Table 8.1. Chronological Map of the OBZ Events DATES

PROTEST EVENTS

15 Oct. 2011

Beginning of the movement

15 Oct. 2011–22 Oct. 2011

Weekly occupation of the buffer zone

22 Oct. 2011–29 Oct. 2011

Weekly occupation of the buffer zone

1 Nov. 2011–19 Nov. 2011

Activists set up the camp in the buffer zone for the night; occupation becomes permanent

1 Dec. 2011

Occupation of the abandoned buildings in Ledra Street (central street in the buffer zone) by OBZ activists

1 Dec. 2011–20 Dec. 2011

Bicommunal assemblies and workshops

14 Jan. 2012

UN asks activists to leave the buffer zone

6 Apr. 2012

Police raid destroys the camp

As mentioned earlier, Facebook participants published the posts selected for this study on specific protest event dates, listed in Table 8.1. Applying our criteria of selection, we ended up with 1,134 posts. The first step was to categorize all the posts according to our framework of civic cultures (Dahlgren 2009). The final sample – 503 posts selected for analysis – comprised the posts with the greatest relevance for the study, from all the categories that were identified as representing main components of civic cultures.

. . . 186 . . .

The Cypriot ‘Occupy the Buffer Zone’ Movement

Posts were analysed in terms of the various dimensions of the civic cultures framework (Dahlgren 2009). This phase involved a mode of interpretive analysis that linked texts with broader social contexts; it is loosely based on the (analytical translation of the) discourse theory approach of Laclau and Mouffe (2001). While wrapped in an ambitious philosophical construct, the actual toolbox of discourse theory offers useful analytic categories (see Carpentier and De Cleen 2007). Discourses as such are structures of relatively fixed meanings that arise within a particular context, some of which have hegemonic positions in relation to others; that is, they convey meanings that are prevalent and dominant. In the case of Cyprus, the prevailing discourses of the mainstream media and political elites on both sides reiterate a divided island and engage in negative ‘othering’. Hegemonic discourses can be challenged by various counter-hegemonic ones, which of course is how the discourses of OBZ take on relevance. The analysis will focus on identifying nodal points – the core signs within OBZ’s discourse that are crucial to fixing the meanings in the discourse; they can be seen as the key concepts or vocabulary of the discourse. ‘Cyprus’ and ‘Cypriot’ are examples of nodal points and are also, as we will see, very much contested by OBZ, which is struggling to redefine the significance of these terms. Discourses interpellate subjects, addressing them and providing them with subject positions from which to form their political identity. However, given the contradictory, contested and often times messy character of discourses, subject positions are to varying degrees at times overdetermined, which means that they are not fully at home in any one discourse, but are pulled in different directions and position by competing discourses, as the analysis of the following OBZ discourses makes clear.

OBZ’s Main Discourses Defining the We/They Distinctions It is the antagonism between a specified ‘we’ and ‘they’ in a concrete situation that drives the fundamental dynamics of political struggle (Mouffe 2013). In the case of OBZ, the discourses we find on the Facebook group reveal how they define themselves and their opponents. As mentioned earlier, the nodal point of ‘Cypriot’ is fundamental to the discourses of OBZ: ‘We are all Cypriots’ is a key slogan; it is often reinforced by ‘There are no boundaries’ or ‘Cyprus is one island’. These slogans were evident from the beginning of the movement through the first occupations

. . . 187 . . .

Venetia Papa and Peter Dahlgren

of the buffer zone, where activists used these specific discourses to construct a common ‘we’. These discourses therefore present the Cypriot people as a unit and treat the distinctions between Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot as a false dichotomy spread through ideological strategies or propaganda. The ‘we’ discourse does often acknowledge differences in language and culture, but the position is that they should not be confused with ‘nations’. Thus, many voices on the Facebook site argue that ‘Cypriot’ is by definition a plural identity, and that difference per se is not the root of the problem. The discursive thrust here is the struggle to create ‘Cypriot’ as an inclusive identity – a subject position that can take precedence over Greek or Turkish attributes: ‘That’s why when people ask me where are you from I just say Cyprus, the next question is ‘are from Greek or Turkish side’ so I explain and say that there’s no such thing we’re all Cypriots who happen to speak a different language’1 (15 October 2011). Within this context, Greece and Turkey as nations are contrasted to ‘us’, and ‘they’ are seen as fomenting division on the island. A difficult additional element of the ‘we’ is the Turkish population that has immigrated to the northern part of the island and is mostly defined as distinct from the Turkish-Cypriots. Some see the power relations between these two groups on the north side as problematic: ‘The army and government should get out, same as the English bases. Turkish Gov. has illegally imported thousands of Turks to change the demographics and so that Turkish Cypriots don’t have any voting power no more. Turkish cypriots have lived on the island for hundreds of years’ (27 October 2011). In terms of offering subject positions, we observe that participants on the Facebook site often insist that Turkish-Cypriots are not the same as Turks, and that Turkey’s policy of sending large numbers of Turkish immigrants to the island is aimed at altering its ethnic and cultural profile. Indeed, considerable discussion occurs around concepts such as ‘the north’, ‘Turkey’ and ‘military zone’. In other words, there is an ongoing effort not only to engender a shared identity, but also to find a common language in the face of the prevailing discourses on each side that have served to maintain the divisions. The UN figures prominently among the ‘they’, the antagonists the OBZ confronts. However, despite a strong discursive vector in the discussions to remove the UN from Cyprus, there are also calls for the Turkish military presence to leave the island. At the same time, another trajectory contends that the UN does play an important role and should not leave before the Turkish military has departed. Not least, voices from the Turkish-Cypriot

. . . 188 . . .

The Cypriot ‘Occupy the Buffer Zone’ Movement

side condemn the Turkish military presence and its consequences: the entity on the north side of the island has no international recognition, cannot engage in international trade, and exists in a sort of economic limbo. ‘UN out of Cyprus’. I do worry seeing the same pattern being repeated on the island; like what happened after the British left. I’m not saying we’re incapable of living in peace together, i’m just saying there is a lot of work that needs to be done before asking the UN to leave (i.e. getting rid of racism, fighting ignorance and stereotypes in the south about the other side). Also we need to demand the Turkish occupation army out of Cyprus first before the UN. (26 October 2011)

On Cyprus, racists are identified as another ‘they’ to be rejected. Racist discourse has been used by both communities over the years, and there is a strong sense that this must be eradicated: ‘I do worry about the rest of Cypriots who don’t think like us: i.e. those nationalist racist fascist supremacist ones; little groups like ELAM2 who graffiti walls of Cyprus with racist shit like ‘fuck all Arabs’…. It is those people that need targeting and ‘educating’ first and foremost.’ (19 December 2011) Local political actors and institutions – the government, the army, the ‘elites’, the mainstream media – are perceived as fomenting discord and thus as adversarial. They are often perceived as puppets of other interests who even have a stake in maintaining the divisions. Some also frame the overall situation in terms of post-colonialism: Why is there a border dividing this city? Do we really want to harm each other? Were we ever as different as they taught us to be? This city wasn’t divided because of the different languages we spoke; it was a power struggle between competing elites. … Nobody should be forced to live under constant threat, to live in a city with five different armies pointing their guns at us, supposedly protecting us from each other. Imperialist armies, post-colonial military forces and alliances, as well as states’ repressing mechanisms and authoritarian institutions. (24 October 2011)

Political Claims and Visions Along with the various efforts to define and establish collective identities, especially a new ‘Cypriot’ one, OBZ also made explicit political claims and defined goals for the future at the same time that the UN was asking the activists to leave the buffer zone. The visions of peace, reunification and reconciliation also figure prominently as nodal points in OBZ discourses: ‘We are friends… Some forces brain wash some of us and those brain washed population divide Cyprus… Greeks and Turks were friends at the time and we still are friends now… We all are cypriots!’ (14 January 2012).

. . . 189 . . .

Venetia Papa and Peter Dahlgren

Another prominent discursive theme is bicommunal trust and solidarity; to this end, there is a strong emphasis on dialogue and discussion to build up consensus and develop bonding across the divide, starting from the buffer zone. Another line of argument is that the Turkish invasion was four decades ago and the new generation has the chance/responsibility to move beyond the conflict: ‘You may see yourself as the vanguard to the next generation, however even you must admit that brotherhood means nothing if there is no trust between both sides. Lets build trust together starting from here. I say this as a 27 year old British Turkish Cypriot, and part of that next generation’ (24 October 2011). It should be further noted that OBZ also manifests a left/critical societal view that resonates with its Occupy roots and inspiration, and that its desire for sovereignty and justice includes an anti-capitalist frame. Its members argue for the confiscation and redistribution of land currently held by ‘the state, the church and immense land owners, the right to own a home [as] a human right and a biological need. Every person should be allocated a home … no-one need[s] ten houses’; ‘[w]e are against racism, sexism, and any ideology that transforms man into an object’ (1 December 2011). This claim unites the international movement’s actions in physical space (occupation of spaces and buildings) with the specificities of the Cypriot case (demands for reunification, via the appropriation of currently unused spaces, by both Turkish-Cypriots and Greek-Cypriots). Thus, the claim of a shared identity follows from the claim for shared use of spaces.

Diversity, Contention and Debate OBZ was a protest movement, but we should take care not to accord it more unity than it actually had. The Facebook page gives expression to quite a bit of debate, at times rather intense. It hovers not least around the nodal terms Cyprus and Cypriot. Some contributors contend that ‘Cypriot’ suggests sameness, a homogeneity that needs to be rejected: I don’t like the ‘we are all cypriots!’ argument either because it’s as if the only way we can live together is if we are THE SAME.. But I still think ‘we are all cypriots’ serves the wrong way. It even serves Xenophobia. And the sameness argument leads to assimilation or alienation. We don’t have to be the same to live in peace together. (25 October 2011)

These discourses also contain remnants of the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot divide: we find arguments over history, for example about the extent of ethnic cleansing after the invasion, the number of fatalities on each side during the conflicts, or issues of justice concerning ownership and confiscation of property: . . . 190 . . .

The Cypriot ‘Occupy the Buffer Zone’ Movement

its not so simplistic. You cannot erase history like this. Neither ignore the national question or the fact that some people feel greeks or Turks or Armenians or maronites. you cannot just dismiss all the identities and the political connotations in the name of pluralism…Because the national problem and the division of the island is not a cultural question. Its not that we don’t like the Turkish food. Its that the conflicting interests of the ruling classes turkey Greece, U.S., U.K. are dividing the island. (2 November 2011) Like most left wing rhetoric the idea is lovely but you cant denies the facts. The official Greek Cypriot agenda in the 60’s was one of ethnic cleansing. I’m not agreeing with all of Turkeys policies in Cyprus, BUT one thing is for sure. There would not have any TC’s left if Turkey hadn’t come in. Ratko Mladic and slobodan Milosovic were tried at the Hague so why not the ‘imperialist puppets’ mentioned above? (25 October 2011)

On another front, some discursive currents argue that the UN is necessary, at least for the time being, and recognize its positive contributions: Ok, it is easy to do UN bashing and trying to bring in facts within the confines of Facebook comments always puts one in the position of defending the UNs actions as a whole and its structure etc. But...consider several things: (1) for decades who arranged the only communication between two sides? (2) Who is and was responsible for humanitarian aid? (3) Who is responsible for the maintenance of the buffer zone?, (4) if UN left, would the island magically re-unite? (24 October 2011)

At times, references to the chaos of the past imply the articulation of Cypriots’ inability to resolve their conflict on their own. Here the key identity figure of Cypriot is overdetermined. It embodies an array of contradictory elements that have not yet been synthesized into a unified subject position. Alongside the legacy of the Greek and Turkish experiences of Cyprus, the conflicting definitions and interpretations of the past add to the instability of ‘Cypriot’ as a signifier. What we see unfolding in the discussions is a political movement in the process of solidifying itself. A roughly shared starting point claims that the present circumstances are hard to bear, and that a concerted effort is necessary to transcend them and establish peace and bi-communal understanding. The view that Cyprus should go its own way, free from the constraints imposed from abroad and cemented domestically over the course of four decades, is fairly unified. At the same time, there is an acute awareness of how the two communities’ different histories – and the telling of those histories – have generated conflicting perspectives on the realities of Cyprus. These contrasting horizons have to be dealt with, confronted, in order to achieve a stronger degree of solidarity within the movement. Different discourses, circulating both between and within the two political entities, are giving rise to a discursive struggle to arrive at a minimal shared way of see. . . 191 . . .

Venetia Papa and Peter Dahlgren

ing and speaking, so that the movement can gain momentum. At bottom, the two communities on Facebook are struggling to find a common terrain on which they can build bi-communal solidarity in face of a key obstacle: the (often varying) historical memories of the conflict. In this regard, we would suggest that a major aspect of the movement – or rather one of its accomplishments during the occupation of the buffer zone – is the way that it de facto generates a mini counter public sphere – a democratic communicative space where differences can be aired with the aim of achieving some degree of consensus and compromise. We note that on this OBZ Facebook page even disagreements are dealt with in a largely civil manner, in contrast to many other online discussions about the Cyprus Problem (see Carpentier 2014). This counter public sphere, to which we shall now turn our attention, poses an alternative to all the official media and hegemonic discourses on both sides of the island – a discursive site that has adopted fundamental premises distinct from the prevailing ones but has not yet fully created a unified political identity encompassing all the participants within the movement.

OBZ as a Manifestation of Civic Culture The Civic Cultures Framework From the overview of OBZ, we see that it is a movement striving for a unified alternative to the situation on Cyprus, even as it reveals a number of inner tensions. We now want to probe the movement from the standpoint of its capacity to generate a participatory climate of engagement, one that could sustain political agency and further develop it. To that end we make use of the civic cultures framework, which is geared to analysing factors that can facilitate or hinder participation (Dahlgren 2009). This framework addresses the contingencies of participation from the standpoint of people’s everyday lives, focusing on taken-for-granted resources that are available to different groups of citizens in historically various and shifting circumstances. Civic cultures serve as taken-for-granted resources that people can draw upon, while they as citizens contribute in turn to its development via their practices. This framework underscores that political agency needs culturally based supportive anchoring that can serve as affordances for such agency. Civic cultures are comprised of a number of distinct dimensions that interact with each other. The participatory practices of citizens constitute one key dimension of civic cultures; others include suitable knowledge about . . . 192 . . .

The Cypriot ‘Occupy the Buffer Zone’ Movement

the political world and one’s place in it, democratic values to guide one’s actions and appropriate levels of trust. A minimal level of ‘horizontal’ trust, that is, between citizens, is necessary for the emergence of the social bonds of cooperation between those who collectively engage in politics, a sphere with an irreducible social dimension. Further, civic cultures require communicative spaces where political agency can take place – public, civil society sites for doing politics. Finally, forms of identity as political agents are a major dimension of civic cultures. People must be able to take on a civic self, to see themselves as actors who together with others can meaningfully intervene in relevant political issues. Civic cultures can be strong in the sense that they can help to empower citizens, but they are not by any means free-floating and are always vulnerable to structural factors of organized power. They can be subverted or simply kept from emerging by intentional, strategic measures. Moreover, sociocultural currents in society can impact on civic cultures; for example, consumerist individualism tends to compete with civic identities. Media also play a very significant role in shaping civic cultures and in today’s world are no doubt the most significant spaces where civic cultures can flourish – and be obstructed. But we must not lose sight of the off-line contexts, as there are indeed real dangers to limiting democratic participation exclusively to media activities. It is still obvious that Facebook (coupled with the physical buffer zone itself) played a central role in the OBZ movement, as its features enabled the movement to create and make use of a communicative space to air and discuss its views. This is in one sense a mundane fact, but given the media’s marginalization of the movement, which they ignored, dismissed, or severely criticized, the affordances of the Facebook site were of enormous significance. Indeed, without it the movement may well have failed to coalesce.

Generating and Sharing Knowledge and Trust From our reading of the material, the knowledge that spread on the Facebook site and contributed to the civic culture engendered by the OBZ movement was of three particular kinds. First, there was a great deal of factual information about history and current affairs in regard to the situation on Cyprus. There emerged a kind of ‘pooling’ of knowledge that was largely – but not entirely – based on the different epistemic regimes on either side of the divide. On each side there was also a process of knowledge accumulation among people with different backgrounds and experiences who met together in physical space. Second, this knowledge in turn con. . . 193 . . .

Venetia Papa and Peter Dahlgren

tributed to greater awareness – again, on both sides – of the mechanisms of knowledge control, disinformation, propaganda and so on. One could say that a number of key hegemonic discourses were both identified and challenged. Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, each side gained important knowledge about the ‘other’, who until now had been perceived as a stranger. This facilitated a deeper understanding of both communities’ historical experiences, social realities, cultural traditions, frameworks of perception and modes of understanding and expression. In short, we could say that this form of knowledge enhanced the inter-subjectivity of the actors, within each side but especially across the divide. This was crucial to building the movement and maintaining the vision of a different future for Cyprus. And to the extent that Facebook discussions spilled over into a broader (albeit limited) public on both sides, they contributed in a small way to the growth of mutual understanding between the two groups. For instance, several bi-communal activities have since been organized, especially with the elderly. We would underscore that ‘knowledge’ is never a mere objective entity; it is always contingent and socially constructed. Thus, to say that knowledge was shared is not to invoke a simple exchange mechanism, but rather to point to processes of social construction in which horizons begin to fuse, and different groups’ cognitive frameworks and notions of relevance begin to merge. This is not a simple and smooth process by any means; it is preceded by discussion and debate. There was, and remained, a good deal of contention in the OBZ movement, but considerable consensus was also achieved. Knowledge that facilitates inter-subjectivity easily morphs into building trust as well. A definitive attribute of the sociocultural and political climate on Cyprus over the past four decades has been precisely the fomenting and maintenance of distrust of the ‘other’. As noted above, the hegemonic discourse of the demonized other has been strong and rarely challenged, so one of the OBZ movement’s major contributions to a new civic culture on Cyprus was precisely its counter-hegemonic efforts to generate the seeds of a climate of bi-communality – a new ‘we’.

Values of the Movement: Democracy and Justice – for Cyprus The OBZ movement displayed two basic sets of values, one general, the other more specific. At the general level, the movement’s discourses about democracy, justice, and equality accorded with prevailing progressive Western conceptions. Here the Facebook participants gave voice to many views . . . 194 . . .

The Cypriot ‘Occupy the Buffer Zone’ Movement

that were prevalent within the Occupy movement – mostly leftist sympathies covering a fairly large political spectrum (Ilican 2013). These general principles were also manifested in democratic procedural values such as the idea of direct democracy, whereby the OBZ operations aligned themselves with the values of horizontal organization and the rejection of hierarchy. This resulted in an absence of clear and public movement leaders. At the same time, these general values translated into ideas with particular relevance for Cyprus. The most notable example is the common insistence that Cypriots on both sides of the divide are victims of injustice and inequality, though not always in the same ways, given the always specified historical circumstances. This sense of shared injustice became a unifying discursive attribute, offering shared subject positions that were mostly evident during the police raid that closed down the Occupy camp: ‘The half of the island is a fake state (talking about the north, as its being called) and the other half is the original state. All of Cyprus is under occupation by unscrupulous political criminals, armed army forces and vicious capitalists. Shit to national boundaries and patriotic stupidity that preserve and perpetuate each authority’ (6 April 2012). Still, as we have already seen, constructing a unified counter–Cypriot identity separate from the entanglements of history and contemporary hegemonic discourses on the two sides of the island has proved difficult. We shall return to this in a moment.

Practices of the Activists The values of the movement seeped into, and informed much of, its concrete practice. The initial practice adopted by the movement was the occupation of the ‘no man’s land’ of the buffer zone, which resulted, for the first time and for most of the activists, in the experience of ‘living together’ with people from across the divide (see Ilican 2013). This in turn furthered the development of bi-communal trust within the movement. The open assemblies were also a key mode of practice; they included general and thematic discussion groups on topics such as the problems of reunification, the status of refugees, the status of the Turkish immigrants and the role of the UN, which appear to have been prominent throughout the occupation of the buffer zone. In sum, we would say that the ensemble of practices represented a form of direct democracy that can be seen as an impressive contribution to the development of civic culture. An important feature of these practices was open, facilitated discussions both online via the Facebook site, and live in face-to-face contexts. In the material we found two basic modes of communicative practices that identifiably reflect two traditional concepts: ‘instrumental’ and ‘ex. . . 195 . . .

Venetia Papa and Peter Dahlgren

pressive’. These form an analytic dichotomy that emerged within political science in studies of voters’ motivations (see e.g. Brennan and Lorensky 1984). In instrumental discourse, citizens are seen as interested in actual political outcomes and their consequences, whereas in the expressive mode, the benefit is seen as residing in the act of expression itself. That is, there is no anticipation or demand that the act will have consequences beyond the satisfaction it affords the citizen: it ‘feels good’, and so on. In simple terms, it is easier to express something than to actually get something done, yet expressive discursive practices must not be neglected. Expressive participation can certainly be important in long-term processes of building collective identities, mobilizing opinion around issues, solidifying counter-discourses, and so forth. The Facebook page had another, significant aspect already mentioned above: it allowed the OBZ movement to go, in a sense, global. The movement gained an international audience, and though dialogue with participants outside Cyprus was limited, it still constituted input, particularly in the sense of being a link to the larger global Occupy movement. Perhaps equally importantly, it gave the activists a sense of having an audience beyond the island: ‘the whole world is watching’, as one of them put it, instilling, one might speculate, an enhanced sense of responsibility.

Identities: The Movement’s Achilles Heel In the civic cultures framework, the notion of identity has two aspects. First is the general self-perception that as a citizen in political contexts, one can act as an empowered political being. The second has to do with specific political issues: one identifies with a position on the issue, taking a discursive subject position. In Cyprus, as in most societies governed more or less according to democratic principles, the first aspect of civic identity is often seen as problematic because for varying and at times complex reasons, many citizens do not participate. Indeed, an abundant literature on civic disengagement has highlighted (for a recent contribution, see Smith 2013) the growing dilemma of low participation in democracies around the world. The second aspect of participation – involvement in issues by those citizens who are active – has in many ways been routine for most citizens on both sides of Cyprus who feel engaged: it involves identifying with the hegemonic discourse that disparages the group on the other side of the divide. OBZ tried to alter that with counter-hegemonic efforts that included formulating new issues aimed at reconciliation and reunification, along with a new set of we-they divisions.

. . . 196 . . .

The Cypriot ‘Occupy the Buffer Zone’ Movement

Much of the issue-oriented identity pivots precisely on the new we-they distinctions launched by OBZ, which serve to foster the activist civic culture that it manifests. Yet at the same time, as we observed above, some group positions are not fully fixed, or are multiple (overdetermined) in the cases of both sets of antagonists – the ‘they’ (who e.g. are ambivalent about the UN) – and the ‘we’ (who e.g. argue about how ‘Cypriot’ is to be defined). In other words, the ambiguities of the identity politics initiated by the movement undercut the potential force of the new civic culture it was generating. In a sense this is understandable, given the rather conservative political traditions of modern Cyprus, which have been shaped by clientelism and ravaged by ideologies of nationalism and enmity in the postcolonial cold war context (Katsourides 2013). The surprising thing about the OBZ movement is that officially, it largely rejected any formal notion of identity and demanded, through its slogans, only that identity be constructed around the notions of ‘Cyprus’ and ‘peace’. In this context OBZ provided space for individuals to step away from the particular entrenched political configurations that are traditionally predicated on the assumption that states are ultimate sovereigns over (and thus owners of) their citizens. In a sense, OBZ members were ‘defectors’ from their societies, seeking refuge from the ‘boredom’ (Toohey 2011) of deterministic and highly structured social norms that in their view left them with few prospects. This boredom, it could be argued, was in fact ‘profound’ enough to effect the radical action that OBZ undertook. OBZ made use of a number of nodal points, such as ‘reunification’ and ‘rapprochement’; most central, however, were ‘Cypriot’ and ‘peace’. Together these provided the movement with radical nuance and edge as the activists became all the more inspired to look beyond the closed horizons of the mainstream politics. Such nodal points revealed the potential of new political subjectivities that had largely been absent, marginalized or supressed during the past decades, opening up new spaces for subversive action. We would further argue that processes of digitalization of collective action were likewise vital, both to the OBZ movement’s establishment of a link between spatial action and identity politics on Cyprus, and to the mobilization of subjectivities around – and linking to – transnational frames. Ultimately, the subject positions OBZ could offer were not strong enough to counter the various mainstream discursive currents. As is evident in the posts and our discussion above, the OBZ never quite managed to pull together a counterhegemonic identity that could energize the movement in an unproblematic way. Instead it remained fractured and by extension

. . . 197 . . .

Venetia Papa and Peter Dahlgren

unsuccessful in achieving these goals, despite having demonstrated the potentiality of alternative civic cultures in Cyprus.

Conclusions The Nicosia-based Occupy the Buffer Zone was a movement that turned urban space into a battlefield of conflicting interests while opening up debate about urban life and socio-spatial segregation. In other words, OBZ translated the global Occupy demands into the ‘language’ of local issues. From its origins as a small anti-authoritarian group, it gained the support of various anti-establishment and anti-capitalist groups and individuals. OBZ claimed a marginal space (buffer zone) in alternative politics and boosted the intensity of discussion between an array of marginal voices and the state, creating new frames for protests. It launched a new (mini-) alternative public sphere (Downey and Fenton 2003) in which Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-Cypriots discussed and debated issues, both in physical space and online. Indeed, it was precisely the ability to freely discuss ideas with the ‘other’ that had been missing from the Cypriot context. There were many bicommunal activities, but genuine dialogue, in which critical voices could clash and hammer out the big issues about the future of the whole of Cyprus, had been largely missing. Through its protest actions, OBZ managed to provide this ‘missing space’ and generate the contours of a new civic culture. OBZ helped forge new subjectivities not only in the context of Cyprus but also in the wider global arena, through the prism of wider concerns that also united people of other nationalities around issues by prioritizing multiplicity, flexibility, openness and inclusiveness. Up until that point it had been impossible to defy or reshape traditional ethno-national notions and ideologies, but OBZ unquestionably opened the door to a new variant of civic culture in Cyprus, establishing the preconditions for an alternative citizen identity or citizen engagement. Much discussion in the recent literature concentrates on the strengths and weakness of recent protest movements, which emerged not least via social media (e.g. the Spanish ‘Indignados’). According to the existing literature, social media have had a rather disappointing impace on individuals’ participation in political processes (Bimber and Copeland 2011), but the effect on civic engagement is modestly positive (Boulianne 2009). Facebook, for example, is evaluated as a very effective means of reaching and engaging masses of interested individuals and groups, because it provides . . . 198 . . .

The Cypriot ‘Occupy the Buffer Zone’ Movement

easily accessible space for high-quality political discussions (Kushin and Kitchener 2009). OBZ is one of many social movements that have used the online social media not just for mobilization and coordination purposes but mostly to strengthen ‘bonding’ among Greek-Cypriots and TurkishCypriots. Here the expressive dimension of politics takes on considerable significance. We thus add our voices to those that claim social media can play a meaningful role in political activism (Castells 2012). Even though the OBZ shares some commonalities with other movements, it nonetheless remains a unique empirical case. Thus, while this movement could critically confront dominant hegemonies and open up new communicative spaces, the contingencies of the Cypriot situation were such that the subject positions it tried to offer – the alternative civic identities – lacked the power to overcome those entrenched by the prevailing historical circumstances. The new, post-ethnic ‘Cypriot’ could not emerge, and the movement, unable to recruit a critical mass of activists or supporters, gradually began to fade.3 We conclude on a more positive note, however: OBZ managed to engender an alternative public sphere and a vision of a new civic culture beyond the delimited communication spaces controlled by the power arrangements on both sides of the divide. Though it could not create ‘the new Cypriot’, it planted the seed of this open communicative space that continues to grow (bi-communal cultural projects are funded). Our view is that this space, rather than its political interventions as such, will be the legacy of OBZ in the future of Cyprus.

VENETIA PAPA is a special scientist at the Department of Communication and Internet Studies, Cyprus University of Technology and University of Cyprus, Cyprus. Her recent work focuses on the construction of civic and collective identity within the contours of social movement activity, and the role of Facebook in this process. She has published several scientific articles in the field of digital media and social movements and is co-author of the book Mobilisations numériques: Politiques du conflit et technologies médiatiques (Les Presses des Mines, 2017). PETER DAHLGREN is Professor Emeritus at the Department of Communication and Media, Lund University, Sweden. His recent work has addressed the Internet and political participation, looking at how the net, combined with other factors, can promote or hinder civic identities and engagement. He is active in European academic networks and has been a visiting scholar . . . 199 . . .

Venetia Papa and Peter Dahlgren

at several universities. He is also the author of a series of journal articles and book chapters. His most recent book is The Political Web (Palgrave, 2013).

Notes 1.

The posts in English are quoted as they were posted on Facebook, including grammatical and spelling errors. 2. ELAM (Εθνικό Λαϊκό Μέτωπο, National Popular Front) is an extreme-right political party that was founded in 2008 in the Republic of Cyprus, It first appeared in national elections in 2011. 3. On 6 April 2012, a substantial police force from the Republic of Cyprus cleared the buildings and space occupied by the activists. Following reports of officers using excessive and unjustified violence in the operation, a demonstration against police brutality was organized on 12 April by the political student magazine Skapoula, whose personnel had participated in the movement and been arrested on the day of the police raid. After that, the movement ceased to exist in physical space, but it is still active on Facebook and through its website. Facebook still displays posts and images related to other bi-communal activities.

References Anduiza, E., C. Cristancho, and J.M. Sabucedo. 2014. ‘Mobilization through Online Social Networks: The Political Protest of the Indignados in Spain’, Information, Communication & Society 17(6): 750–64. Bennett, W.L., and A. Segerberg. 2013. The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics. New York: Cambridge University Press. Bimber, B., and L. Copeland. 2011. ‘Digital Media and Political Participation over Time in the US: Contingency and Ubiquity’, Annual Meeting of the European Consortium of Political Research, Reykjavik, 25–27 August 2011. Boulianne, S. 2009. ‘Does Internet Use Affect Engagement? A Meta-Analysis of Research’, Political Communication 26(2): 193–211. Brennan, G., and L. Lorensky. 1984. Democracy and Decision: Cambridge; The Pure Theory of Electoral Preference. New York: Cambridge University Press. Carpentier, N. 2014. ‘“Fuck the Clowns from Grease!!” Fantasies of Participation and Agency in the YouTube Comments on a Cypriot Problem Documentary’, Information, Communication & Society 17(8): 1001–16. Carpentier, N., and B. De Cleen. 2007. ‘Bringing Discourse Theory into Media Studies: The Applicability of Discourse Theoretical Analysis (DTA) for the Study of Media Practices and Discourses’, Journal of Language and Politics 6(2): 265–93. Castells, M. 2012. Networks of Outrage and Hope: Social Movements in the Internet Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Dahlgren, P. 2009. Media and Political Engagement. New York: Cambridge University Press. ———. 2013. The Political Web. Basingstoke: Palgrave. Della Porta, D., and M. Diani. 2006. Social Movements: An Introduction. Malden, MA: Blackwell. . . . 200 . . .

The Cypriot ‘Occupy the Buffer Zone’ Movement Downey, J., and N. Fenton. 2003. ‘New Media, Counter Publicity and the Public Sphere’, New Media & Society 5(2): 185–202. Effler, E.S. 2010. Laughing Saints and Righteous Heroes: Emotional Rhythms in Social Movement Groups. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Gerbaudo, P. 2012. Tweets and the Streets: Social Media and Contemporary Activism. London: Pluto Press. Ilican, M.E. 2013. ‘The Occupy Buffer Zone Movement: Radicalism and Sovereignty in Cyprus’, Cyprus Review 25(1): 55–80. Jenkins, H., S. Ford, and J. Green. 2013. Spreadable Media: Creating Value and Meaning in a Networked Culture. New York: New York University Press. Katsourides, Y. 2013. ‘“Couch Activism” and the Individualisation of Political Demands: Political Behaviour in Contemporary Cypriot Society’, Journal of Contemporary European Studies 21(1): 51–70. Keen, A. 2015. The Internet Is Not the Answer. London: Atlantic Books. Koopmans, R., and D. Rucht. 2002. ‘Protest Event Analysis’, in B. Klandermans and S. Staggneborg (eds), Methods of Social Movement Research. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, pp. 231–59. Kushin, M., and K. Kitchener. 2009. ‘Getting Political on Social Network Sites: Exploring Online Political Discourse on Facebook’, First Monday 14(11). Retrieved 1 June 2015 from http://www.firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2645. Laclau, E., and C. Mouffe. 2001. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics, 2nd edn. London: Verso. Markham, A., and E. Buchanan. 2012. Ethical Decision-making and Internet Research: Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee (Version 2.0). Retrieved 6 March 2017 from http://www.dphu.org/uploads/attachements/books/books_5612_0.pdf. Melucci, A. 1996. Challenging Codes: Collective Action in the Information Age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morozov, E. 2011. The Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate the World. London: Allen Lane. Mouffe, C. 2013. Agonistics: Thinking the World Politically. London: Verso. Papa, V., and D. Milioni. 2016. ‘“I don’t Wear Blinkers, All Right?” The Multiple Meanings of Civic Identity in the Indignados and the Role of Social Media’, Javnost - The Public 23(3): 290–306, DOI: 10.1080/13183222.2016.1210464. Papacharissi, Z. 2010. A Private Sphere: Democracy in a Digital Age. Cambridge: Polity Press. Postill, J. forthcoming. ‘Field Theory, Media Change and the New Citizen Movements: The Case of Spain’s “Real Democracy Turn”, 2011–2014’, Mediterranean Politics, special issue, Citizenship in the Mediterranean. Shirky, C. 2008. Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing without Organizations. London: Allen Lane. Smith, A. 2013. ‘Civic Disengagement in the Digital Era’. Pew Research Center. Retrieved 23 October 2013 from http://www.pewinternet.org/2013/04/25/civic-engagement-inthe-digital-age/. Taylor, A. 2014. The People’s Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age. London: Fourth Estate. Tilly, C. 2004. Social Movements, 1768–2004. Boulder: Paradigm. Touraine, A. 1978. Lutte Étudiante. Paris: Seuil. Toohey, P. 2011. Boredom: A Lively History. London: Yale University Press. Van Dijck, J. 2013. The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. New York: Oxford University Press.

. . . 201 . . .

PART III CONFLICT REPRESENTATIONS OF CYPRUS FROM THE OUTSIDE

Chapter 9

W

HOSE FLAGS ARE THESE?

Apollon Limassol vs. Trabzonspor Football Matches in Turkish Online News and User Comments as a Case of ‘Banal Nationalism’

D. Beybin Kejanlioglu and Serhat Güney

Introduction Nationalism is not manifested in official policies, rhetorics and discourses alone, and is not restricted to times of crisis. As Billig (1995) argues, nationalism should not be considered in only its extreme manifestations in specific historical circumstances: equally important are the times of non-crises, when nationalism works under ‘normal conditions’ in ordinary people’s everyday lives. According to Billig (ibid.: 6), nation states are reproduced as nations, and ‘their citizenry as nationals’, on an everyday basis, and to this end ‘a whole complex of beliefs, assumptions, habits, representations and practices must also be reproduced . . . in a banally mundane way’. He introduces the term ‘banal nationalism’ to examine the everyday ‘ideological habits which enable the established nations of the West to be reproduced’ (ibid.). The media’s role in the construction of national identities and reproduction of both official and everyday nationalism is crucial. The present study uses as an example a sporting event and its coverage by the media, to show how ‘banal nationalism’ is articulated by the media and their audiences. The event involves two teams from ‘primordial-enemy’ countries – Turkey and the Republic of Cyprus – and shows how deeply embedded nationalistic discourse is in sports events and their coverage by the media. More in detail: in the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) Europa League 2013/14 fixtures, Group J included the teams Apollon Li-

D. Beybin Kejanlioglu and Serhat Güney

massol, from the Republic of Cyprus (RoC), and Trabzonspor from Turkey. The first of the successive matches was played in Limassol on 19 September 2013, and the second in Trabzon on 28 November 2013. Both teams have a controversial history in relation to their nationalisms, and both matches were beset with a problem concerning the use of flags. According to UEFA regulations, competing clubs’ flags are flown at the stadium, but national flags can be used if club flags are absent, provided that both parties agree. However, as reported in the news, in the first match, in Limassol, the Turkish flag was absent and the flag of Greece (not Cyprus) was flown. Trabzonspor’s club flag had been removed by Apollon Limassol fans. During the second match, in Trabzon, Trabzonspor distributed Turkish flags to all spectators at the entrance of the stadium. Also, Apollon Limassol players posed for the camera with a Greek flag on a visit to the Sumela Monastery, an important site in the Greek Orthodox religion.1 The present study focuses on these two football matches and their surrounding events, which were largely framed as a ‘flag crisis’ by the Turkish media, to show how nationalism is discursively articulated in online news media and user comments. The analysis, examining how mundane events such as football matches contribute to the construction of ‘banal nationalism’ (Billig 1995), profits from Carpentier’s (2010, 2015) ‘ideological model of war’ and from discourse theory’s (Laclau and Mouffe 1985) analytical tools.

‘Banal Nationalism’ in the Case of Sports and Media Nationalism has long been a source of debate among scholars from diverse fields in the humanities and social sciences. Primordial approaches emphasize either socio-biology (van den Berghe 1981) or culture (Geertz 1963), while others stress ethnic origins (e.g. Smith 1986, 1991) without being considered primordialist. There are also scholars explaining nationalism in terms of economic changes (Nairn 1977), political transformation (Hobsbawm 1993) and social and cultural transformation (Anderson 1983; Gellner 1983), all of whom agree that nationalism is a distinctively modern phenomenon. Anderson (1983) in particular gives a central place to the print media in his account of nationalism and the creation of nations as ‘imagined communities’. Two other crucial dimensions of nationalism raised by Hobsbawm (1993: 168–70), which are also the main focus of this chapter, comprise: (1) the use of mass media to standardize, homogenize and transform popular ideologies, which is more effective than deliberate . . . 206 . . .

Whose Flags Are These?

mass propaganda, in the effort to make national symbols a part of ordinary life, so as to bridge the gap between local private and national public spheres; and (2) sports events between national teams, which over time have turned from friendly competitions into national struggles, as ‘an imagined community of millions seem more real in the team of eleven names’ (Hobsbawm 1993: 170, emphasis added). In his work on ‘banal nationalism’, Billig (1995) devotes a special section to analysis of newspapers’ sports pages, which he argues can be seen ‘as banal rehearsals for the extraordinary times of crisis’ (ibid.: 11). Sport has an extraordinary place in his conception as not just banal but also notordinary, being still mainly a masculine domain and bearing similarities to warfare (ibid.: 124) in that sports pages regularly use metaphors of weaponry like attacking, shooting, firing, etc. (ibid.: 123). Discussing the parallels between sports and warfare, sports and politics, and sports and gender, Billig (ibid.: 124–25) draws attention to the crucial concepts of ‘sacrifice’, ‘heroism’ and ‘national honour’. This can be related to Anderson’s (1983: 26) idea of a nation that unites ‘the living and the dead’ and demands commitments and sacrifices from the members of the nation (Calhoun 1993: 232). Sports news reporting on international sporting events unites biographies of sports heroes with stories of the nation in a shared historical narrative. Members of a nation are subject to everyday rehearsals, preparations and reminders of willingness to sacrifice in the fight for the cause of national honour. In their account on sport and media, Bernstein and Blain (2002: 13–15), like Billig, identify national identity (together with gender) as a central topic. Recurrent themes within this central topic include sports as a substitute for war, the use of military metaphors, a high level of national sentiment, sports’ contribution to the reinforcement of national identity, and overlap between other collective identities and the national identity. Several other studies have examined the relation between nationalism and the (media) representation of sports, particularly football matches, arguing along similar lines (see e.g. Blain, Boyle and O’Donnell 1993; Crolley and Hand 2002; Giulianotti 1999; Gökalp and Panagiotou 2008). Making a somewhat different remark, Giulianotti (1999: 32, 66–68) highlights the fact that local and regional loyalties can surpass the construction of national unity in sports discourse and signal the persistence of tensions and divisions within a nation. Also, Gökalp and Panagiotou’s (2008: 243) research on the press coverage of football matches between Greece and Turkey reveals a sharp disconnect between the Greek quality press and sports press on the one hand, and the prevalence of nationalist discourses on the other. Ac. . . 207 . . .

D. Beybin Kejanlioglu and Serhat Güney

cording to the authors, the main emphasis, within the nationalist discourses, is on the self versus the enemy, as if in warfare, and ‘even the seemingly objective news headings employ the rhetoric of “us” and “the other”’ (Gökalp and Panagiotou 2008: 242). Finally, some studies on Turkish media, regarding non-sports events, use ‘banal nationalism’ (Billig 1995) as a framework and focus on Cyprus. A study by Yumul and Özkırımlı (2000) examines thirty-eight newspapers in relation to a ‘crisis’ event: the RoC’s decision on 16 January 1997 to buy missiles from Russia, ‘which was perceived as a threat not only to Turkish-Cypriots but to Turkey as well’ (ibid.: 789). These missiles were reported as a threat to national security and a source of anxiety, as they were ‘capable of downing Turkish jets over Turkey’. Politicians were quoted in the newspapers saying: ‘Turkey is facing a new trap’ and ‘The real target is Turkey’. One columnist even stated that if Turkey did not take necessary precautions, ‘Cyprus will slip from our hands’. The decision was blamed on Greece and Europe. One newspaper, in reporting on the Daily Telegraph’s evaluation – which held the Greeks responsible for this crisis and portrayed the purchase of the missiles as an ‘unwise decision’ – transformed it into the heading ‘Silly Greeks’ (Yumul and Özkırımlı 2000: 794). Research conducted by Way and Akan (2012), though it does not make direct use of ‘banal nationalism’, takes different nationalisms as its central theme and employs critical discourse analysis (CDA) to the Turkish press coverage of a Cypriot event. An explosion at the Evangelos Florakis naval base on 11 July 2011 resulted in several deaths and the loss of 60 per cent of the RoC’s electric capacity. The sale of electricity by the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) to RoC is the ‘banal’ event under consideration. The authors examined two newspapers, Zaman and Hürriyet, underlining the different nationalistic discourses of the two dailies, which accorded with their affiliations with different political parties. Hürriyet, for instance, having historical ties to the TRNC, military interests and ties to the main opposition party, CHP (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, Republican People’s Party), evaluated the presence of Turkish military forces in Cyprus positively and emphasized that the TRNC – an internationally unrecognized nation – was legitimate, both as a state of its own and institutionally. The same newspaper supported the island’s division as a solution to the Cyprus Problem. Zaman, on the other hand, prioritized the policies of the government in power at the time, cited AKP (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, Justice and Development Party) sources more and legitimized TRNC as a state in general, though without using the politicians’ functional honorifics. In other words, unlike Zaman, which used agentless activations, Hürriyet . . . 208 . . .

Whose Flags Are These?

articulated TRNC positively and RoC negatively (Way and Akan 2012: 22–26). However, according to Way and Akan (ibid.: 26), both stances were in the interests of the Turkish political and military elite, which ‘lie in a divided conflict-ridden Cyprus’.

Nationalistic Discourses in Sports Journalism in Turkey The roots of sports journalism in Turkey go back to the beginning of the twentieth century. From this period until the 1980s, Turkish sports journalism focused on a variety of sports. Substantial change occurred in the 1990s due to the transformation of sports journalism into ‘football journalism’. Sports pages in the dailies and the sporting papers devoted generous space to football, and especially to the four big clubs in Turkey, namely Fenerbahçe, Galatasaray, Beşiktaş and Trabzonspor (Bora and Uluğ 2003: 213–15; Talimciler 1999: 103). The roots of this development lie in the military coup of 1980. The government, which was politically suppressing the population, tried to create the circumstances of a popular culture, finding its meaning in the advertisement-entertainment-tabloid cycle. The football journalism of the 1990s came into being in an environment that cultivated a ‘shallow’, ‘artificial’, ‘heroic’ (Mutlu 1996: 334) and profane journalistic language. This type of football journalism used masculine language that evoked war, violence or sexual violence, and often evoked aspects of nationalism. In this period, when investment in football had increased and the Turkish teams had relatively more success in the international arena, the international football matches presented a convenient ground and opportunity to produce nationalist discourse. In this new football culture, players had big ‘national’ responsibilities, and complicated issues like the history, the present and the future of the country were linked to the games on the field (ibid.: 361). From the 1990s onwards, neither the Turkish football press’s tendency towards violent language with nationalist and sexist overtones nor the production of conflicts or tensions during the international matches of the Turkish teams can be overlooked. One of the most severe events happened in the season of 1999–2000. After the Istanbul leg of the UEFA Cup semifinals series game between Leeds United and Galatasaray, two Leeds supporters were killed in Taksim Square. The Turkish sports/football media’s reaction to this bitter incident was to blame the Leeds supporters for triggering their own deaths by ‘humiliating our moral and national values’ and ‘provoking our people and national sensitivities’ (Bora and Onay 2000: 51). . . . 209 . . .

D. Beybin Kejanlioglu and Serhat Güney

The example of a headline in the newspaper Star that refers to the score of the game (Galatasaray won 2-0) as ‘two on the field, two outside’, is extreme but also illustrative of the conception of football as warfare. Ordinary stories on football matches have increasingly turned into expressions of hatred. This unavoidably requires enemies. The clearest addressee of this language of warfare, used in headlines full of words such as ‘bomb’, ‘destruction’, ‘dynamite’, ‘taking apart’, ‘crushing’ and ‘victory’, was ‘Europe’, because the matches were played in the European Cup. An unfavourable view of the West was constructed because of tensions between Europe and Turkey with respect to human rights issues, especially the ‘Kurdish problem’. The football matches played an ‘indispensable’ role, particularly via football coverage, in the symbolic expression of the grudge building up against Europe (Bora and Ulu 2003: 233). When international football matches are covered, international football associations and chiefly UEFA, along with the nation of the rival team, are the enemy. Within this context, news coverage of the Turkish teams’ international games centred on issues such as referees who were frequently ‘using their whistles’ against the Turkish teams, prejudiced observers, the UEFA’s eagerness to punish the Turkish teams with outrageous or unfair penalties, and the like. The use of such phrases and sentences reinforces existing discourses about international problems and brings the ‘national interest’ into football matches by stimulating the football audience with references to historical issues like the Vienna campaign, the Turkish-Greek war, the Cyprus Problem, and so on. The case study here – Turkish online media coverage and user comments on the UEFA Europa League 2013/14 football matches between the Republic of Cyprus’s Apollon Limassol and Turkey’s Trabzonspor – involves one of these issues. In our analysis we attempt to show how online news and related comments discursively reinscribe temporal and spatial traces of Turkey’s relations with European states and institutions. In particular, we focus on Turkey’s relations with Cyprus and Greece, and on how these (re)inscriptions contribute to nationalism as a discursive formation and thus to an enduring conflict.

Historical Background Before the case study is analysed, a brief note on the historical background of the relations of Turkey with Cyprus is in order. Turkish involvement in Cyprus goes back to Ottoman times: Cyprus was part of the Ottoman Empire from 1571 to 1878. The island changed hands in 1878, when the British . . . 210 . . .

Whose Flags Are These?

took the island under their control, first as a protectorate and then as a British colony, in 1925 (Markides 2006: 32). In the mid 1950s, Greek-Cypriots led by EOKA (Εθνική Οργάνωσις Κύπριων Αγωνιστών, National Organization of Cypriot Fighters) struggled for independence against the British (Carpentier 2014: 8) and expressed a demand for enosis (union with Greece). The EOKA’s desire for enosis was countered by calls for Taksim (partition), propagated by, amongst others, TMT (Türk Mukavemet Teşkilatı, Turkish Resistance Organization), which was established in 1958. In the second half of the 1950s, the bloody Cypriot struggle against British rule and internal ‘others’ resulted in an agreement among Greece, Turkey and Britain (as guarantors), along with community representatives of Cyprus, on the independence of Cyprus in 1960. Even after the Republic of Cyprus was founded, the violent acts by EOKA and TMT did not give peace a chance; nor did the roles and relations of the guarantors. Escalating violence in the 1960s and early 1970s resulted in the Turkish military intervention, which was justified as protecting the Turkish-Cypriot population, and in the island’s partition in 1974 (Ker-Lindsay 2009: 13), which assigned Turkish-Cypriots to the northern part (38 per cent of the island) and Greek-Cypriots to the south (62 per cent of the island). In 1983, Turkish-Cypriots declared the founding of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), recognized as a state only by Turkey (İlter and Alankuş 2010: 263). In 2004 the Republic of Cyprus (RoC), recognized worldwide as a legitimate country (except by Turkey), became a full EU member. Since 1974, several attempts to negotiate a peaceful solution have not managed to bear fruit, and the island remains divided.

A Note on UEFA and the Teams, Trabzonspor and Apollon Limassol The UEFA (Union of European Football Association), founded in 1954 in Basel, brings Europe’s national football associations into its administrative body and runs several international competitions, among which the UEFA Champions League, considered to be the most important competition for men’s national teams, is followed by the UEFA Europa League. In the 2013/14 season Apollon Limassol and Trabzonspor competed in the Europa League, a competition with strict, detailed regulations about admission, trophies, responsibilities, competition system, fixtures, venues, rules of the game, referees, discipline, finance, and so on. Regulations apply also to fair play, safety and security, and discipline. . . . 211 . . .

D. Beybin Kejanlioglu and Serhat Güney

At the time of the two teams’ matches, the regulations on the flags were as follows: ‘The UEFA flag and the Respect flag must be flown at the stadium at all matches in the competition. … From the group stage onwards, the competition flag must also be flown’ (Regulations of the UEFA Europa League 2012–15 Cycle, 2013/14 Season, article 14.01). Competing clubs’ flags are flown at the stadium. As mentioned before, national flags can be used in a case of absence of club flags, provided that both parties agree. Apollon Limassol, a Greek-Cypriot sports club founded in 1954, has competed in its country’s division 1 since 1957. Throughout the years it has won a series of titles in the national league. The team’s current stadium is the Tsirion or Olympia Stadium. The team’s colours are blue and white, representing the colours of the Greek flag. The creation of the team corresponded to Greek-Cypriots’ struggles for enosis. Apollon Limassol had an organized group of supporters that, after trying several names, finally settled on the name PAN.SY.FI APOLLON (Panhellenic Supporters Association of Apollon) to show their enduring claim of association with Greece. Trabzonspor was founded in a merger of Trabzon’s four local footballclubs in 1967. Its colours are claret and blue, and Hüseyin Avni Aker Stadium has been its home field since 1951. After winning a series of championship titles in the second half of the 1970s, Trabzonspor was regarded as the ‘fourth big team’ after the three Istanbul clubs. Its nickname, the ‘Anatolian revolution’, was a description suited to the spirit of the period, implying the rebellion of oppressed Anatolian teams against the powerful and rich Istanbul teams that had long dominated the leagues. However, the 1980 military coup created an environment that prevented such ‘revolutionary’ interpretations and changed the terms of discourse from revolution to aggressive, militant nationalism. Since then Trabzonspor has been called the ‘Black Sea panther’ and ‘Black Sea storm’. Slogans and chants with verses against the big Istanbul teams today are embellished with unpleasant references to Kurds and Armenians (Şimşek 2014; Çilingir 2015), and Trabzonspor is regarded as one of the clubs in the nationalist front.

Method of Data Collection and Analytical Approach To analyse the news coverage of the two matches and their surrounding events, along with the user-/reader-related comments published on Turkish news websites, we used a search engine to look for related stories. We found twenty-six news reports for the first match, dating from 18 to 21 September 2013, and twenty-four for the second, from 26 to 29 November 2013. Only . . . 212 . . .

Whose Flags Are These?

a few of them were original news reports; most replicated either the whole story or some parts of the original news reports.2 The user comments were numerous: There were 241 comments on seven news reports in September, and 109 on four news texts in November, totalling 350 comments (news reports with only one or two comments were not included in the analysis). Most of them came from the websites of sports newspapers like Fotomaç (26 comments), Fanatik (31 comments), spor.mynet.com (37 comments) and spor.internethaber (116 comments); however, the website of a national daily, Hürriyet/hurriyet.com.tr, had also published many (110) comments. The comments’ analysis followed guidelines formulated by the international community of scholars on conducting research online (see e.g. Markham and Buchanan 2012). The comments we collected and analysed were publicly available. In the cases where quoted material is included in the analysis, the authors’ names and identity are concealed. In addition, the excerpts’ translation from Turkish into English further assists the ‘anonymization’ of the people quoted. In analysing this material, we applied a discursive approach informed by the work of Laclau and Mouffe (1985), according to which both meaning and social practice are regarded as constructed through discourse. Discourses can be seen as structures of meaning articulated around certain core concepts, called nodal points, that are used to fix meanings within each discourse. Sometimes these discourses acquire hegemonic positions in social reality, supported by particular privileged societal actors. This does not mean, however, that these hegemonic discourses remain uncontested. Given the contingency of the social, discourses – even the most dominant ones – can always be destabilized and questioned, depending on the (power) relations of the different social actors and the discourses they articulate. Our analysis largely profits from Carpentier’s (2015) ‘ideological model of war’, an approach that also departs from discourse theory. It is Billig’s work that justifies adapting Carpentier’s model, loosely transferring it to the world of sports. As Billig (1995: 124, 125) argues, ‘[s]port does not merely echo warfare, but it can provide symbolic models for the understanding of war’; and later-on: ‘[d]ay after day, millions of men seek their pleasures on … [the sporting pages], admiring heroism in the national cause, enjoying prose which intertextually echoes warfare.’ Considering the particular case study here, what makes a sporting event between Cypriots and Turks warfare is their history and ongoing conflict on the Cyprus Problem. Carpentier (2015: 2) argues that ‘the edges of imagined communities at war, which are blurred in more normal circumstances, become impenetrable frontiers between “us” and “them”, between the Self and the Enemy.’ . . . 213 . . .

D. Beybin Kejanlioglu and Serhat Güney

Sporting events, in particular football matches, have usually the same discursive-ideological construct; the self and the other, us and them. These constructions rely on a basic dichotomy of good and evil, which has several manifestations such as just and unjust, innocent and guilty, barbaric and civilized, cowardly and heroic, etc. Moreover, Carpentier (ibid.: 3) distinguishes another layer of dichotomies based on the signification of the violent practices of both parties, where this violence is seen as necessary and unnecessary, purposeful and senseless, legitimate and illegitimate, etc. He agrees with the view that these dichotomies are not fixed. They are ‘floating signifiers’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985, 112–13), open to (re)articulations under different conditions ‘and inserted into different chains of equivalence’ (Carpentier 2015: 3). They become fixed and articulated with other discursive elements, in hegemonic projects. In Carpentier’s (ibid.: 4) model, the construction of the identity of the Self entails an antagonistic construction of the identity of the Enemy as a ‘constitutive outside’, whereupon another discursive position enters the picture: the Victim, either identified with one of the poles or detached from them. In Carpentier’s (ibid.: 4–5) words, ‘the Self’s goodness emanates not only from the willingness to fight this evilness, but also from the attempts to rescue the Victim.’ Besides these three, other discursive positions in the background of the model include ‘Supporters’ and ‘Passive Allies’, who are located in a similar cultural sphere, and ‘Bystanders’, who take a more detached position in the construction of identities (ibid.: 5). However, given the contingency of the social, discourses and identities are not fixed and can be destabilized in moments of crisis and thus dislocated, by events hard to accommodate or symbolize (Carpentier 2015: 6). In this line of reasoning, banal nationalism, in the case of sports and its media coverage, is embedded in contingencies. Nevertheless, it is expressed through the articulation of the self and of the other, which involves the construction of the self, the victim and the enemy.

Articulation of the Self and of the Other All the news reports, whether they used an ‘objective’ tone of voice or not, and most of the user comments under consideration show the connection of Trabzonspor (and other teams in the Turkish football league) with Turkishness, with the main symbol being the Turkish flag, pitched against Apollon Limassol, Cyprus and Greece (the Greek, in general) with their flags, and the UEFA (Europe in general) and its regulations. This construction of a . . . 214 . . .

Whose Flags Are These?

Turkish identity extends to include the TRNC and its flag, and recalls a myth of a glorified past full of victorious wars. However, as we shall discuss later in this part, identities can clash when the team is prioritized over the nation, or other (ethnic, religious) identities are evoked.

The Team(s) = The Nation As a specific international sporting event, the UEFA Europa League does not include national teams, but only teams that participate in the domestic leagues of the different European countries. Thus, it was not Turkey’s national team but Trabzonspor that competed in this league in 2013/14. All the news reports and most of the user comments, however, related the team to the nation, thus presenting Trabzonspor as a representative of Turkey/ Turkishness. The first photograph of a stand, used in the online website of Ntvspor on 26 November 2013 (Figure 9.1), perfectly illustrates this, having a large team flag of Trabzonspor in the background, with one of the supporters flying the Turkish flag in the centre at the highest point of the image. A user comment prioritizes the nation over the team in this sense: ‘First nation, then mother and the beloved. Our beloved is TRABZONSPOR but first comes the homeland, first comes the flag’ (Milliyet, 28 November 2013).3 Another user even expresses a desire for unity through the colours of the flag: ‘Trabzonspor should change its colours to the Turkish flag colours’ (TrabzonsporTV, 20 September 2013). Figure 9.1. Trabzonspor and Turkish flags

Figure 9.2. Trabzonspor players

. . . 215 . . .

D. Beybin Kejanlioglu and Serhat Güney

In Figure 9.2, the three Trabzonspor players shown on the field in front of the goal pos, look happy and ‘victorious’, perhaps after a goal (Milliyet, 28 November 2013). As will be shown later, the black player in this photo throws the equation of the team with Turkishness into question; still, the news and comments referred to ‘our’ team, ‘our’ nation, ‘our’ flag. In fact, there was also an appeal for a unity of the four big football clubs of Turkey, expressed in both a photograph (Figure 9.3) displaying supporters wearing the colours of three big football teams united under the Turkish flag (Fanatik, 20 September 2013) and in comments such as ‘sweet competition within our borders and alliance outside the borders (our only wish)...’ (Fanatik, 20 September 2013). However, far from such ‘sweet’ understanding of ‘competition’ and ‘alliance’ (which will be analysed later), most user comments seemed to recall a glorified past of Ottoman rule and the nation’s victories in the wars it waged: ‘No worries, we will do our best for hospitality, they will taste the Ottoman slap’ (a defence or attack technique used by Ottoman soldiers to stun the enemy with their bare hands) (61saat.com, 20 September 2013); ‘No problem… We have flown the flag in Cyprus before, at an appropriate time’, referring to the 1974 military intervention (Haberts.com, 21 September 2013). This construction of identity in some comments was extended to directly include the TRNC, as a supporter and passive ally, and its flag: ‘Whether it would be the TRNC flag or the Turkish flag in Trabzon, the Greek seeds [referring to their origin] would see’ (Spor.mynet.com, 19 September 2013). Figure 9.3. Supporters and club flags

. . . 216 . . .

Whose Flags Are These?

The use of metaphors served to strengthen military references and remarks concerning the national territory: ‘We shot and gave them a lesson. There is another match in avni aker [Trabzonspor’s stadium], they will come to trabzon, they will drown with the Turkish flag and die’ (Fanatik, 20 September 2013). Other metaphors added references to nature to the equation, such as one of the nicknames of Trabzonspor, ‘the Storm’, referring to an unstoppable force: ‘Awesome start from the storm’ (Spor.mynet.com, 19 September 2013). The authors of the above quotes obviously regard the football match as equivalent to war. The different football teams that are antagonistically competing with each other in Turkey, taken together, create an equivalential chain based on the nation. Here the nation is constructed with reference to not only its national territory but also, through references to the past (the Ottoman Empire, the 1974 invasion in Cyprus, etc.), an expanded version of this territory. The indispensable element in the nation’s glorification by its historical war narrative is the reference to the other. If every identity is relational, then identity cannot be constituted without the hierarchical construction of a difference; thus the notion of the ‘constitutive outside’ enters the picture (Mouffe 2005: 15). Thus, representing the self becomes possible only through the representation of its other, the enemy, as in Carpentier’s (2015) ‘ideological model of war’ – the enemy that was beaten in a war (or a set of wars) is to be beaten again in (a) football match(es).

‘Our’ Flag(s) vs. ‘Their’ Flag(s) Language about the enemy is prevalent in the news reports and comments, as shown by one reference to the 1996 killing of Solomos Solomou, a Greek-Cypriot who attended to take down the Turkish flag in the Cypriot buffer zone: ‘ENEMY… DIDN’T THEY TRY TO PUT DOWN THE FLAG ON THE BORDER, WHICH ENDED WITH OUR DEAR SOLDIER’S SHOOTING THEIR BRAINS OUT?’ (Fanatik, 20 September 2013). In fact, all the news items and comments generally marked ‘the Greek’ as the other or the enemy. In line with official language, no use of ‘Cypriots’ or ‘Cyprus’ or ‘RoC’ was detected; instead, it was always ‘the Greek side’ or ‘southern Cyprus’ or ‘Cypriot Greeks’. In relation to the specific event under consideration, Apollon Limassol, Greeks and Greek-Cypriots (‘Cypriot Greeks’ in Turkish) did not lack for accusations. The news headings prominently featured items such as ‘Ugly Move from Greeks [Rum]’4 –referring to the fact that the Turkish flag was . . . 217 . . .

D. Beybin Kejanlioglu and Serhat Güney

not flown (365istanbulhaber, 20 September 2013); ‘Greeks [Rum] Did What Was Expected from Them, Again’ (Fanatik, 20 September 2013); ‘Ugly Behaviour from Apollon Limassol’ (Internethavadis, 19 September 2013); ‘Pseudo Friendship of Greeks’ (Haberturk, 21 September 2013). Reports on the event used such phrases and sentences as ‘The Greek Side Broke the Promise and Hung the Flag’ (medyatrabzon; takaonline, 20 September 2013) and ‘Greek Supporters Waved Giant Greek flags and Provoked Our Players’ (Turkspor, 20 September 2013). These statements show that the identity of the enemy is constructed as unreliable: the enemy is a provocateur against the self, who is in turn articulated as reliable and peace-seeking. In fact, media users joined the chorus of reporters by multiplying such qualifications in their comments with epithets like ‘dishonourable’ and ‘having dirty hands’. Furthermore, by avoiding reference to the RoC or Cyprus, they negate the existence of both the state and the unified Cypriot identity, and complement this negation with emphasis on the Greek component, creating an identity of the other as non-independent, a mere annex of Greece. The news on the ‘flag crisis’, which also appeared in the news headlines as ‘flag scandal’, ‘flag show’, ‘flag tension’ and ‘flag reaction’, cast the Turk as the ‘good’ side of the antagonism, and the Cypriot as the ‘evil’ side. It was definitely the other, the (Cypriot) Greek/Apollon Limassol, who created crises and tensions, performed scandalous acts and set up a show. The self/the Turk/Trabzonspor was also the ‘victim’ and could only ‘react’ to or ‘complain about’ such ‘unjust’ acts by the enemy. The websites 365istanbulhaber, medyatrabzon and takaonline feature the same type of news story, reporting: A flag crisis occured in the Trabzonspor-Apollon Limassol match. The claret-blues [i.e. Trabzonspor’s colours] reacted to the fact that the Turkish flag was not flown and said ‘either our flag will also be flown or your flag will be taken down’.… After the complaint by the claret-blues, the flags of the Greek side of Cyprus and of Greece were taken down in the second half.

The Trabzonspor TV Facebook page ran the same news report but with a different quote from the one above, focused on the reaction of Trabzonspor’s administration during half-time: ‘Either that flag will be taken down or we withdraw the team from the match.’ In this way Trabzonspor, the ‘victorious’ team, could not fall into the passive, reactive position and was represented as having a forceful, ‘threatening’ agency. Only two news websites quoted the words of Nicos Kirzis, chairman of Apollon Limassol, after the first match (Haberts, Fotomaç, 21 September 2013): ‘If we had flown the Turkish flag, a more unpleasant situation would . . . 218 . . .

Whose Flags Are These?

have occurred. Thus, we are content with the punishment.’ This statement actually made clear that there was a security problem related to Apollon Limassol’s background and the likelihood of violence erupting among its supporters. In the second match, the news reports assured readers that there was no crisis at all: ‘Response to the Claims that “There Was a Flag Crisis” in Avni Aker! Club General Manager Metin Kazancıoğlu: No Flag Crisis Occurred’ (Fotospor.com, 29 November 2013). In fact, the self was also constructed as ‘successful’ versus the other’s ‘failure’ to prevent crises. Flag photographs in the news were used to arouse national sentiments. For instance, the lack of the Turkish flag in the first game was marked in a photograph (see Figure 9.4), but the absence of the Greek flag in the second half of the match was not shown. Another example is a ‘giant flag of Greece’ unfolded in the stands right behind the Trabzonspor team (see Figure 9.5), displaying a kind of contrast in both colours and size. By using this image alongside another view of the stands with a placard reading ‘Cyprus Is Hellas’ (see Figure 9.6), the Turkish media completed the picture of a historical claim in Cyprus in relation to its (Greek) origins and identity (Fanatik.com.tr, 20 September 2013). Flags had also appeared in the headlines the day before the second match (26 November 2013), when Apollon Limassol visited the Sumela Monastery in Trabzon. While Milliyet reported that ‘supporters of Apollon Limassol who were characterized as ultra-nationalists in their country unfolded a flag of Greece and the team players posed in front of it’, MedyatraFigure 9.4. The circled absence of the Turkish flag

. . . 219 . . .

D. Beybin Kejanlioglu and Serhat Güney

Figure 9.5. The Greek flag in the stands

bzon.com put the flag in the headline with an exclamation point: ‘Apollon Limassol Unfolded the Flag of Greece in Trabzon!’ A 2:58-minute video uploaded by Medya Trabzon showed a group of people from Limassol posing with flags, with the subtitles: ‘Apollon unfurled the Greek [Yunan] flag in Sumela Monastery’ and ‘That’s enough, remove that flag’ (following an attendant’s intervention) (Medyatrabzon.com, 27 November 2013). Being represented as an ‘ally’ of Apollon Limassol/the Greek, the UEFA/ Europe was also constructed as the other of the self represented by Trabzonspor/Turkey, as shown in comments like ‘UEFA considers the principle Figure 9.6. The slogan ‘Cyprus is Hellas’

. . . 220 . . .

Whose Flags Are These?

of equality when the event takes place in Turkey; the guys do anything they’d like to in Cyprus’ (Milliyet, 28 November 2013); ‘If we, turks did it, closing the stadium, financial penalty, a ban from uefa and so on. this is western justice that can be that much and I do not believe that our constant matching with Greeks in the fixtures is a coincidence’ (Fanatik, 20 September 2013). These quotes mark Turks as the other of Europe or by extension the Western world, and such marking seems to be influenced by conspiracy theories as envy and fantasies about Europe muddy the waters. Even when a Turkish team obeys the rules of this Western/European world, it can become the ‘internal other’. Still, Trabzonspor could claim to be a ‘European storm’, as in a 28 November 2013 news headline at Hurriyet.com.tr: ‘Meet the European storm’. These take us to the contingency of these representations.

Who Are ‘We’? Who Are ‘They’? Prior to the analysis of contingent articulations of national identity as they appear in the news and in comments on the two football matches, a brief description of the geohistorical specificity of the Black Sea (or Pontos) region, where the city of Trabzon is located, is necessary. Pontos’s long history brought the area into a delicate position in relation to the development of nationalism in the early nineteenth century in the Ottoman Empire. The nationalist process started with the Ottoman-Russian war in 1877–1878, continued with the Armenian Genocide in 1915 and reached its peak with the foundation of the Republic of Turkey. The Black Sea region came to the forefront as a place where the purifying character of nationalism was appreciated because of the presence of a Greek population and established Greek culture. Deportation of the Greeks from the region – which in 1923 reached its final phase when Turkey and Greece agreed on an exchange of populations and a process of removing the remnants of Greek culture – has significantly affected the ‘national’ sensitivity of the region (Özel 1991; Asan 1996; Andreadis 1997). Similarly, Istanbul is still commemorated for its crucial position as the capital city of both the Byzantine and Ottoman Empires. Its multi-ethnic roots and cosmopolitanism are still mentioned, also in reference to the Istanbul sports teams. As Laclau and Mouffe (1985: 131) argue, a ‘proliferation of antagonism’ makes it difficult to construct ‘unified chains of equivalence’. With regard to our case study, the articulation of a unified Turkish national identity is contested by the different perceptions of Turkishness presented by the media and expressed by the users in their comments. . . . 221 . . .

D. Beybin Kejanlioglu and Serhat Güney

The first split between the representation of Trabzonspor and Turkishness was previously mentioned in the interpretations of the images. In one photo, the presence of a black footballer (see Figure 9.2) for Trabzonspor countered the image of the Turk. The picture did not match up with Turkish history and the present population. More significant, though, was the way it broke up the constructed unity of all the teams in the Turkish football league as ‘we’ Turks. Often the term ‘Greeks’ (Rum) was used in the comments, to attack the supporters of other teams. The description ‘Greek’ was also used pejoratively to accuse Turks of not being Turkish enough. In this context, those who wished for unity received negative comments from some readers, especially in the discussion about the UEFA’s decision to replace Fenerbahçe with Trabzonspor in the Champions League due to an ongoing match-fixing investigation that started in 2011. Eventually, amidst ongoing conflict among different team supporters in Turkey, the question turned out to be who the ‘real’ Turks are. The use of a bunch of humiliating nicknames for other teams and profanity directed at their supporters also showed ‘Turks’ in their ‘strong masculinity’. Trabzonspor fans stated: ‘As seen in the comments, Trabzon’s victory over the Greeks makes Turks happy while it saddens indigenous Greeks more than Cypriot Greeks’ (Spor.mynet.com, 19 September 2013); ‘Only fenevs [a humiliating nickname for supporters of Fenerbahçe] are sad as Trabzon won from their brother team’ (Spor.mynet.com, 19 September 2013); ‘WE GAVE NECESSARY LESSON TO MATCH-FIXER GREEKS BOTH INSIDERS AND THOSE IN NICOSIA …’ (spor.internethaber, 19–20 September 2013); ‘The longest unbeaten Turkish team in europe is trabzonspor, jealous byzantines can be green with envy’ (Internethaber.com, 28–29 November 2013). Fenerbahçe fans wrote in return that : ‘anchovies [a humiliating nickname for Trabzonspor, referring to a small fish native to the Black Sea region] will play with their ancestors’ team. both teams are greek, have greek roots’; ‘LOOK AT THE COLOURS OF BYZANTINE WHICH TEAM HAS THESE COLOURS IN TURKEY’ (Fotomac, 21 September 2013). A lot of similar comments show quarrelling between fans; we picked only a few: ‘ARE THERE ANY BETTER GREEKS THAN YOU? LOOK AT YOUR PAST. YOU BELONG TO PONTOS POPULATION. YOUR ACCENT SHOWS THAT AND FENER MAKES YOU BOTH INSIDE AND OUTSIDE’; ‘What kind of a…hole you are calling Trabzon people as Greek…’; ‘IS IT AN INSULT? WE REVEALED YOUR PAST, WHERE YOU ARE FROM, IDENTITY OF YOUR GRANDFATHERS…’ (spor .internethaber, 19–20 September 2013). . . . 222 . . .

Whose Flags Are These?

All these frequently used references to Pontos and Byzantium show something else as well. When these comments are taken together, everybody seems to be ‘Greek’ at some point: it becomes a floating signifier. Neither does Turkishness escape from this floating. The comments by news website users complicated the issue further by adding other identities to the chains of equivalence and difference. For instance, some comments had religious tones: ‘YOU PLAY BALL ON THE FIELD OF THE PRIEST, BEING BROTHER TEAMS SUITS YOU MUCH BETTER’; ‘ANCHOVIES, HAD YOU PRAYED IN THE MONASTERY BEFORE GOING THERE, YOU WOULD BE SMITED’ (Fotomac, 21 September 2013). In such comments, the Orthodox belief of Greeks is transferred to Trabzonspor and marked as the other of Islam and Fenerbahçe. The Greek religious identity, as such, is not the only identity combined with Greekness. Turks’ others also included Jews and Kurds: ‘anchovysport won 2–1. At least anchovysport is a much better team than Jewish cincon [distorted form of CimBom, nickname of Galatasaray] yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh may anchovysport succeed in Europe, may Jewish cincon go to hell yeahhhhhhhhhhh’; ‘Heads of separatists [alluding to the singular form, a commonly used humiliating word for describing the Kurdish/PKK leader Ocalan] leave those Pontos, greek stuff… Trabzon is more Turkish than yours. …’ (spor.internethaber, 19–20 September 2013). In the case of Kurds, the threat of the other ethnic, ‘separatist’ identity bypasses religion. Only such separatists can accuse Trabzon and Turks of Greekness. This fantasy of separation/partition must have a subtle equivalence to other divided lands, like Cyprus – they too can fear that what Turks did can happen to them due to the power of internal enemies. In our search, only one website seemed to have users that thought differently. One of them labelled the ethnic dimension of Turkish nationalism as racism: ‘no need for racism’ (61saat.com, 26 November 2013).

Conclusions This chapter focused on a popular event – a somewhat ordinary case, almost extreme in its banality – to show how, in Billig’s (1995) words, ‘banal nationalism’ operates in fostering and strengthening nationalistic perceptions of one’s identity. It examined the case of two football matches between a Greek-Cypriot team, Apollon Limassol, and a Turkish team, Trabzonspor, in the UEFA Europa League 2013/14, and the related news coverage by the Turkish online media. The event, framed as a ‘flag crisis’ by the me. . . 223 . . .

D. Beybin Kejanlioglu and Serhat Güney

dia, triggered high interest among Turkish fans, whose comments were also taken into consideration in our analysis to capture the different dimensions of banal nationalism. In the above analysis, which profited from Carpentier’s (2015) ‘ideological model of war’, it was not only the history of Turkish-Greek relations and conflict in the context of the Cyprus Problem that came to the fore, but also the conflicts within Turkey regarding Turkishness and its extreme forms of expression in nationalist fantasies. Sports fans seeking pleasure in reading and commenting on football news not only appreciated heroism in relation to the national cause, feeling ‘national pride’, but also entered into a battle via pseudo military attacks as if they were engaged in a war. Yet ‘the enemy’ in this warfare was ambiguous. Constantly changing imaginative identities – Greek-Cypriots, Greeks, Jews, Kurds, non-Muslims and their overlapping forms – were attributed to residents of Turkey, who were marked as internal enemies. Greek-Cypriots, Greeks, Europe and the West in general were the external enemies, yet still they were among and within Turks. Moreover, Turkish media and media users positioned Turkey ambiguously, as on the one hand they celebrated the Turkish team in a match in a European league against a Cypriot team, even labelling the team as a ‘European Storm’, while on the other hand they accused Europe and (Cypriot) Greeks of various possible evils, symbolized here by the ‘flag crisis’. If nation states are imagined communities, as Anderson (1983) argued, then there must be something wrong with this imagination. The analysis also revealed that recognition of Cypriot and European identities and acceptance of an ethical responsibility to report and comment on conflict situations in ways that could contribute to peace building (Alankuş 2013) still seem distant, at least in the Turkish media. The football fans’ violent and racist comments also contribute to the reproduction of hatred-based conflicts in Turkey. These fans and journalists seem like their own ‘enemies’, unable to turn the position of ‘enemies’ into ‘adversaries’ and thus transform the conflict into an ‘agonistic’ (Mouffe 2005) democratic struggle. Instead, they remain stuck in a chain of antagonism.

Acknowledgements In writing and revising the text, we received several constructively critical comments on its presentation in the context of the Media, Conflict, Participation Colloquium held at Cyprus University of Technology in Limassol (28 February–1 March 2014). We are especially grateful to Vaia Doudaki

. . . 224 . . .

Whose Flags Are These?

and Nico Carpentier for their detailed input on the draft chapter, and to Gökhan Toptepe for his help with the visual material.

D. BEYBIN KEJANLIOĞLU works at Giresun University, Turkey, and is currently a visiting professor at the University of Helsinki, Finland. She has written books on the transformation of media and media policies in Turkey, and on media and communication in critical terms of the Frankfurt School. She has edited an e-booklet, Alternative Media and Participation (2014, with S. Scifo) and a special issue of the journal Interactions on new media and participation (2014 December). Her articles on news on Turkey’s EU bid, alternative media, the public sphere and body politics have appeared in Communications, European Journal of Communication and Social Anthropology. SERHAT GÜNEY is Professor at Galatasaray University, Istanbul, and has worked extensively on radio listenership, immigrant media, and music. His current research focuses on migrancy within the scope of cultural production and communication. He lectures on broadcasting history, urban culture and music use in media.

Notes 1.

Greek populations, which had lived in the region since ancient times, used the monastery as one of their religious centres for centuries. In 1923, however, they were forced to leave under the agreement on population exchange between Turkey and Greece. 2. The web media that published news reports on these two matches during the period of study were takaonline, ulusalkanal, haberts, gündemkıbrıs, 365istanbulhaber, kıbrısmanşet, gazete5, türkspor, internethavadis, gerçekgündem, amerikalıtürk, habertürk, fanatik, karadenizfırtınası, mynet, milliyet, radikal, haber7, hürriyet, haberkktc, haberkıbrıs, medyatrabzon, kıbrıstime, ekşisözlük, haber61, trabzontv, sporfc, 61saat, ntvspor, fotospor, sondakika, internethaber, fotomaç, birlikgazetesi, uludağsözlük and habertakvim. 3. Quotes have been translated from Turkish. Theses translations remain as close as possible to the published original, including use (or non-use) of capital letters, and grammatical and other errors. 4. The term ‘Rum’ is used to refer to Greek people in Turkey and Cyprus; ‘Yunan’ is for Greeks in Greece. In order to differentiate these, we added the Turkish word in brackets wherever it seemed necessary. Also, unlike in the English usage of ‘Greek-Cypriots’ and ‘Turkish-Cypriots’, the Turkish language does not emphasize Cypriotness; rather, it refers to ‘Cypriot Greeks’ and ‘Cypriot Turks’.

. . . 225 . . .

D. Beybin Kejanlioglu and Serhat Güney

References Alankuş, S. 2013. ‘“Başka” Bir Habercilik İhtiyacı ve Hak Odaklı Habercilik’, in M. Çınar (ed.), Medya ve Nefret Söylemi: Kavramlar, Mecralar, Tartışmalar. İstanbul: Hrant Dink Vakfı, pp. 219–50. Anderson, B. 1983. Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism. London: Verso. Andreadis, Y. 1997. Gizli Din Taşıyanlar. İstanbul: Belge Yayınları. Asan, Ö. 1996. Pontus Kültürü. İstanbul: Belge Yayınları. Bernstein, A., and N. Blain. 2002. ‘Sport and the Media: The Emergence of a Major Research Field’, in A. Bernstein and N. Blain (eds), Sport, Media, Culture: Global and Local Dimensions. London: Frank Cass, pp. 1–30. Billig, M. 1995. Banal Nationalism. London: Sage. Blain, N., R. Boyle, and H. O’Donnell. 1993. Sport and National Identity in the European Media. Leicester: Leicester University Press. Bora, T., and A. Onay. 2003. ‘Taksim Cinayeti, Leeds Zaferi ve Türk Milletinin Tahrik Olma Hakkı’, Birikim 133: 51–55. Bora, T., and Y. Uluğ. 2003. ‘Samandıra, Florya, Fulya… Türkiye’de Spor/Futbol Medyasının Son Yirmi Yılı Üstüne’, in D. Tılıç (ed.), Türkiye’de Gazetecilik. Ankara: ÇGD, pp. 211–36. Calhoun, C. 1993. ‘Nationalism and Ethnicity’, Annual Review of Sociology 19: 211–39. Carpentier, N. 2010. ‘Deploying Discourse Theory: An Introduction to Discourse Theory and Discourse Theoretical Analysis’, in N. Carpentier et al. (eds), Media and Communication Studies: Interventions and Intersections. Tartu: Tartu University Press, pp. 251–64. ———. 2014. “‘Fuck The Clowns from Grease!!” Fantasies of Participation and Agency in the YouTube Comments on a Cypriot Problem Documentary’, Information, Communication and Society 17(8): 1001–16. ———. 2015. ‘Introduction: Strengthening Cultural War Studies’, in N. Carpentier (ed.), Culture, Trauma, and Conflict: Cultural Studies Perspectives on War, 2nd edn. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, pp. 1–20. Çilingir, T. 2015. ‘Pontos’un Piçleri ve Fenerbahçe’. Retrieved 5 November 2015 from http:// devrimcikaradeniz.com/pontosun-picleri-ve-fenerbahce. Crolley, L., and D. Hand. 2002. Football, Europe and the Press. London: Frank Cass. Geertz, C. (ed.). 1963. Old Societies and New States: The Quest for Modernity in Asia and Africa. New York: Free Press. Gellner, E. 1983. Nations and Nationalism. Oxford: Blackwell. Giulianotti, E. 1999. Sociology of the Global Game. London: Routledge. Gökalp, E., and N. Panagiotou. 2008. ‘Futbol! Oyun mu, Savaş mı? Türkiye-Yunanistan Futbol Maçlarının İki Ülke Basınındaki Temsili ve Milliyetçilik Söylemi’, in İ. Cangöz (ed.), Uygun Adım Medya: Bir Bilinç Körleşmesi. Ankara: Ayraç, pp. 229–46. Hobsbawm, E. 1993. 1780’den Günümüze Milletler ve Milliyetçilik: Program, Mit, Gerçeklik [Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality], trans., O. Akınhay. İstanbul: Ayrıntı. İlter, T., and S. Alankuş. 2010. ‘The Changing Configurations of Self-(M)other Dialogue in North Cyprus’, Social Identities 16(2): 261–84. Ker-Lindsay, J. 2009. ‘A History of Cyprus Peace Proposals’, in A. Varnava and H. Faustmann (eds), Reunifying Cyprus: The Annan Plan and Beyond. London: I. B. Tauris, pp. 11–25. Laclau, E., and C. Mouffe. 1985. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso. Markham, A., and E. Buchanan. 2012. Ethical Decision-Making and Internet Research: Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee (Version 2.0). Retrieved 6 March 2017 from http://www.dphu.org/uploads/attachements/books/books_5612_0.pdf. Markides, D. 2006. ‘Cyprus 1878–1925: Ambiguities and Uncertainties’, in H. Faustman and N. Peristianis (eds), Britain in Cyprus: Colonialism and Post-colonialism 1878–2006. Mannheim and Möhnsee: Bibliopolis, pp. 19–33. . . . 226 . . .

Whose Flags Are These? Mouffe, C. 2005. On the Political. London: Routledge. Mutlu, E. 1996. ‘Avrupa’yı Salladık, İngiltere’yi Sarsacağız: Futbol, Milliyetçilik ve Şiddet’, Cogito 6/7: 367–77. Nairn, T. 1977. The Break-Up of Britain: Crisis and Neo-Nationalism, 2nd edn. London: New Left Books. Özel, S. 1991. Milli Mücadelede Trabzon. Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu. Regulations of the UEFA Europa League 2012–15 Cycle, 2013/14 Season. Retrieved 15 November 2015 from http://www.uefa.com/MultimediaFiles/Download/Regulations/competitions/Regulations/01/94/62/40/1946240_DOWNLOAD.pdf. Şimşek, H. 2014. ‘Karadelikleriyle Trabzonspor’. Retrieved 20 November 2015 from http:// www.gazetebilkent.com/2014/10/20/karadelikleriyle-trabzonspor/. Smith, A. 1986. The Ethnic Origins of Nation. Oxford: Blackwell. ———. 1991. National Identity. London: Penguin. Talimciler, A. 1999. ‘Türkiye Futbol Medyası’, Birikim 117: 98–103. UEFA Disciplinary Regulations. Edition 2014. Retrieved 15 November 2015 from http:// www.uefa.org/MultimediaFiles/Download/Regulations/uefaorg/UEFACompDisCases/02/11/23/49/2112349_DOWNLOAD.pdf. Van den Berghe, P. 1981. The Ethnic Phenomenon. New York: Elsevier. Way, L.C.S., and A. Akan. 2012. ‘Electricity and Nationalism: Different Nationalisms in Turkish News Media Coverage of Cypriot Events’, Global Media Journal: Mediterranean Edition 8(1): 18–28. Yumul, A., and U. Özkırımlı. 2000. ‘Reproducing the Nation: “Banal Nationalism” in the Turkish Press’, Media, Culture & Society 22(6): 787–804.

. . . 227 . . .

Chapter 10

AT

REASURE IN VAROSHA

The Role of a Cypriot Myth in the Construction of Turkish Nationalist Identity

Aysu Arsoy

Introduction The aim of this study is to discuss how the destruction of Cyprus’s Famagusta district of Varosha as a living space and its continued abandonment are legitimized by myths that partially serve the hegemonic Turkish nationalist discourse. This chapter focuses on one specific, centuries-old myth about Varosha, set in the pre-Ottoman period, regarding the hidden treasure of Guy of Lusignan. According to this myth, King Guy of Lusignan brought a large part of the royal treasure to Cyprus (Cawley 2011) when he came to the island after his regency in Jerusalem ended in 1192. Apart from looking at the ways in which this myth serves Turkish nationalism, the chapter also analyses its potentially disruptive capacities for Turkish nationalism and its fantasy of homogeneity, and how these capacities are strongly countered in the (online) reception of this myth. In a contemporary version of this myth, a YouTube video presents an alternative reality in the contemporary context of bi-communal conflict, division of the island and the abandonment of Varosha. The video, entitled ‘The Real Story of the Cyprus Peace Operation. Watch It before It Is Removed’,1 is narrated by a Turkish-Cypriot. Its content briefly tells the story of how Guy of Lusignan brought the Crusaders’ holy treasure from Jerusalem to Cyprus and buried it in Varosha (Maraş/Βαρώσια). Via the myth about Lusignan and the treasure, the story offers an alternative explanation of the division of Cyprus and suggests the powerful Rothschild and Rocke-

A Treasure in Varosha

feller families’ assumed interest in this treasure led to their involvement as well. The research consists of a qualitative content analysis of the video and of the viewer comments it evoked. The analysis focuses on how the video uses a myth to retell the story of the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and the continuation of the Cyprus Problem, and how viewers respond to this narration, linking it to the Turkish national identity. As the analysis shows, the story re-historicizes the ethnic clashes on Cyprus, explaining the division of the island by attributing responsibility to the Illuminati (a secret society) and to the Rothschilds’ and Rockefellers’ interests. On one level, the video and the audience’s comments in support of a hegemonic Turkish nationalist discourse that legitimizes Turkey’s 1974 intervention – not as an occupation but as a peace operation to rescue a brother population – are aligned, in that they create unity between Turks and Turkish-Cypriots. At the same time, like any hegemonic discourse that attempts to construct a homogeneous national identity (Smith 1991; Triandafyllidou 1998; Weiner 2008), this one is not free of tensions and contradictions. The main tension is that even though Turkish-Cypriots are defined as a population of Turkish origin, they are denied the status of real Turks. This chapter investigates how these two contradictory positions oscillate between inclusion and exclusion, rendering the video’s narration myth and counter-myth, and both strengthening and undermining the construction of a homogeneous and united Turkish national identity.

The Defining Myth To understand the workings of the Lusignan myth and the ideological elements it encompasses, we need to provide a theoretical backbone that allows us to make sense of the notion of myth and its connection to (and difference from) ideology. The notion of myth is often defined in relation to the dominant culture. For Fiske (1990: 88), for instance, myth ‘is a story by which a culture explains or understands some aspect of reality or nature’. Fiske distinguishes between primitive and sophisticated myths: primitive myths are about life and death, men and gods, good and evil; sophisticated myths are about masculinity and femininity, about the family, and so on. A similar approach, embedded in the semiological tradition, can be found in the work of Barthes (1972), who sees myth as a special system constructed from a chain of related concepts. This chain refers to ‘the dominant discourses of contemporary culture’, which are a ‘culture’s way of thinking . . . 229 . . .

Aysu Arsoy

about something, a way of conceptualizing or understanding it’ (Fiske 1990: 88). For Barthes, myths are ‘inserted into the value system of the culture’ and operate to naturalize history (ibid.: 89). ‘[M]yths are actually the product of a social class that has achieved dominance by a particular history: the meanings that its myths circulate must carry this history with them, but their operation as myths makes them try to deny it and present their meanings as natural, not historical or social’ (ibid.). This discussion also highlights the close connection between myth and ideology. Barthes (1972: 112) regards mythology, the study of myths, as ‘a part both of semiology inasmuch as it is a formal science, and of ideology inasmuch as it is an historical science: it studies ideas-in-form’. Myth is ‘a type of speech about social realities which supports ideology by taking these realities outside of the arena of political debate’ (Bignell 2002: 25). Myths, together with the values they connote, are ‘what they are because of the ideology of which they are the usable manifestations’ (Fiske 1990: 166). As Kelsey (2015: 29) argues (in reference to Bottici [2007: 206]), myths are narratives that allow for the expression of ideology, ‘serving the ideological function of naturalization’ (Chandler 2002: 254). But if we see ideology as a site of contestation and struggle for hegemony (Gramsci 1999), and not as a given, then the role of the myth becomes more complex. When myths travel, they can enter into contact with other cultural hegemonies, and a myth that initially supports and conveys a dominant ideology might in a different context be seen as counter-hegemonic. Moreover, we can also distinguish counter-myths, which aim at unsettling dominant ideologies and may provoke fierce responses in turn. Here, we can return to the work of Fiske (1990: 90), who denies that myths are universal in a culture, explaining that ‘[t]here are dominant myths, but there are also counter-myths’. Reid’s (2011: 339) discussion of counter-myths in the context of post-apartheid South Africa is illuminating, as she argues that a counter-myth ‘functions to denaturalise the ideology which determines the discourse of the dominant myth’, although this counter-myth remains ‘impregnated with the discourse of the dominant ideology’.

The Ideological Fantasy of Homogeneity In discussing the particular video, the Lusignan myth it refers to, and the responses it provokes, we need to zoom in and focus on a particular hegemonic order, namely the one constituted by Turkish nationalism. One of the key defining elements of nationalism is its emphasis on a degree . . . 230 . . .

A Treasure in Varosha

of homogeneity within the nation (even if diversity is possible within this homogeneity) (Smith 1991; Triandafyllidou 1998). When the nation, along with nationalism, becomes connected to the state (which is not a given) and a nation state is created, then citizenship comes to play this homogenizing role. For instance, soon after the Republic of Turkey was established, Article 88 of the 1924 constitution stated that ‘[t]he name Turk, as a political term, shall be understood to include all citizens of the Turkish Republic, without distinction of, or reference to, race or religion’ (Earle 1925: 98). Article 66 of the present constitution of the Republic of Turkey, adopted in 1982, states that ‘[e]veryone bound to the Turkish State through the bond of citizenship is a Turk’ (The Constitution of The Republic of Turkey Article 66: Turkish Citizenship). An example of the role of homogeneity in connection to nationalism and national identity is seen in the British-Irish identity construction. The ‘race relations’ paradigm of togetherness and homogeneity dominated the inclusion of the Irish people in Britain (Hickman 1998). According to Mary Hickman, the ‘race relations’ paradigm ‘unquestioningly’ accepted what in this chapter will be called the fantasy of ‘British homogeneity’ (ibid.: 290). However, the ‘inclusion of the Irish within the same “race”’ with the British ‘rendered the Irish invisible as a minority’, subjecting them to ‘racialization and discriminatory practices’ (ibid.: 299). For Hickman, the ideological construction of British homogeneity ‘assumed that all people who were white smoothly assimilated into the “British way of life” and that the problems all resided with those who migrated and possessed a different skin color’ (ibid.). The hidden ideological argument in this case was that the same skin colour represents the same culture and a different skin colour represents a different culture. The fantasy of British-Irish homogeneity ‘therefore had to entail the denial of differences among the white population’. The result of this was that ‘the Irish were also rendered invisible as an ethnic minority group’, together with black and Asian groups (ibid.). This ideological construction of homogeneity also plays a significant role in Cyprus, and in particular in the position of Turkey towards the TurkishCypriots. With the fall of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of modern Turkey, the British Empire, after it gained control over Cyprus in 1878, homogenized the Ottoman/Muslim Cypriots, included them within a supposed Turk(ish) race and renamed them as Turk(ish) Cypriots. This colonial policy constructed a sense of togetherness between the Turkish-Cypriots and Turkey as a way to control the rising aspirations for enosis (implying the union of Cyprus with ‘motherland’ Greece) within the Greek-Cypriot community. Thus the British colonial paradigm shifted to an ideology of sepa. . . 231 . . .

Aysu Arsoy

ration and control of the two main communities of the island, promoting the separate identities of Turkish-Cypriots and Greek-Cypriots over those of (Muslim and Christian Orthodox) Cypriots by constructing these new identities for them (Faustmann 2009; Papadakis 2005; Mavratsas 2016). The nationalist ideology that defines Turkish-Cypriots as Turks is also key to understanding Turkey’s position in relation to its continued military intervention. The Turkish nationalism promoted in the 1950s gradually ‘crystallized [a] Turkish Cypriot sense of ethnic identity, [of] what was before only a linguistic/religious concept’ (Kızılyürek and Gautier-Kızılyürek 2004: 45). It was during that period that the demand for the island’s partition – a counter-ideology to the Greek-Cypriot nationalist discourse of enosis – came to be pronounced by the Turkish-Cypriot leadership (Anastasiou 2008). From then on, ‘the Turkish-Cypriot nationalism ceased to be merely a romantic attachment to “mother Turkey” and developed its own political program, based on the division of Cyprus between the two nations’ (Kızılyürek and Gautier-Kızılyürek 2004: 45). The Turkish nationalism among Turkish-Cypriots ‘gradually became a separatist ideology’, cultivating the idea ‘that the two communities cannot live together’. Therefore, ‘many Turkish Cypriots were forced to break their relations’ with other communities, and ‘limit their interactions within the Turkish Cypriot community’ (ibid.). Within this rhetoric, motherland Turkey and Turkish ideology ‘became a kind of religion’ (Hatay 2008: 150). Accordingly, the Turkish nationalist ideology sees the Turkish military intervention2 and division of the island as a ‘Peace Operation’ that rescued Turkish-Cypriots from the oppression of nationalist Greek-Cypriot forces, and thus ‘the people greeted the Turkish soldiers as “liberators”’ (ibid.). In contrast, the rhetoric of the two communities living together is a discourse that contradicts the Turkish nationalist perception of the ‘peace operation’, since it can be interpreted as acknowledging the ‘Turkish intervention’ as occupation of the island.

History and Myths of Varosha/Maras¸/Βαρώσια Cyprus was conquered by the Ottomans in 1570–71. In 1573, the sultan ordered (by firman or imperial edict) that Greek-Cypriots (including Armenians, all non-Islamic citizens and a few Venetians) living in the walled city of Famagusta should move to a seaside suburb (Varosha/Maraş/Βαρώσια) outside the walled city (Goodwin 1984; Keshishian 1985). This decision changed the demography of the region, a situation that continued after Ot. . . 232 . . .

A Treasure in Varosha

toman rule ended (in 1878), throughout the era when the British Empire controlled the island (1878–1960), and after the independent Republic of Cyprus was established in 1960. In the 1960s, Varosha was an example of modernity. Adapted in a rejection of colonial rule by the English and an attempt to create a modern Cypriot identity, it embraced a contemporary international style (Feros and Phokaides 2006). During the 1970s, before the Turkish invasion of 1974, Famagusta, especially Varosha, was one of the most popular tourist destinations on the Mediterranean, attracting many celebrities of the time. During the Turkish forces’ military operations in 1974, when the Turkish army occupied Varosha (together with the rest of the Famagusta area); Varosha’s entire population fled the town, afraid of being massacred (Asmussen 2008). As of 1974, Varosha became a city forbidden to civilians, under the control of the Turkish armed forces. It thus became the most significant (but not the only) ghost town on the island, slowly crumbling away. According to Asmussen (2008), finding a solution for Varosha has been a constant issue in the negotiations under way since 1975. Michael (2009: 73) mentions that the idea of resettling the city first appeared in 1978. After the unilateral declaration of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) in 1984, which the international community considered a secessionist act, the UN (United Nations) Security Council voted on Resolution 550 (adopted on 11 May 1984).3 This resolution protested against the establishment of the TNRC but also mentioned Varosha, stipulating that only the resettlement of its original inhabitants would be allowed. Since the beginning of the negotiations, Varosha has been regarded as a token in the process for finding a solution (Asmussen 2008), used mainly as ‘a bargaining chip’ (Michael 2009: 73). It is considered of ‘little military worth to the Turkish side’, but its ‘political value as a bargaining commodity’ is acknowledged to be extremely important (ibid.: 74). Thus, while the negotiations drag on for decades with no concrete outcome, there has been no resettlement of Varosha; nor have its original inhabitants returned. A few buildings are used by the Turkish military and UN peacekeeping forces, but the rest remains abandoned. This situation instigated speculation, generating many myths about Varosha, treasure stories in particular. One of these myths – that gold bars made of looted religious artefacts are buried in the foundations of Varosha’s Orthodox churches – provoked more looting (attempts) and legitimized the destruction of churches. Other myths claim that bars of gold still lie in the vaults of what once were the banks of Varosha. The UN’s regular checks, aimed at preventing looting, generated this gold bars myth and kept it alive. . . . 233 . . .

Aysu Arsoy

One other myth concerns the Golden Sand Hotel in Varosha, which was a luxury hotel before its abandonment and Varosha’s occupation. The hotel is described as made of pure gold (even though it was only painted in gold) (H. Fedai, personal communication, 1 July 2015 and 25 April 2014). One important myth about the existence of a hidden treasure in Varosha revolves around Guy of Lusignan, a knight of French origin who through marriage became King of Jerusalem (1186–1192) and then, after the end of his regency in Jerusalem, went to Cyprus. Guy of Lusigian was Lord of Cyprus until his death in 1194 and allegedly transported a large part of the royal treasure from Jerusalem to Cyprus (Cawley 2011). Another key player in this myth is Marcantonio Bragadino, the last civil governor of the Venetians in Famagusta. When the 300-year rule of the Lusignans ended, Venice took control of Cyprus, but in 1570 the Ottomans landed on the island. Famagusta held out for almost a year under the command of Bragadino and the military governor of the island, Astorre Baglione (Brewer 2010: 84; Brown and Catling 1975). In one version of this myth, Bragadino, who was killed by the Ottomans after the capture of Famagusta (Erdoğdu 2009), had buried Lusignan’s treasure. The story then jumps to the twentieth century, claiming that the descendants of Bragadino came to Cyprus soon after the 1974 invasion to search for their family’s valuables, including Bragadino’s personal diary. They (again allegedly) argued that their ancestor had left a map (a plan) describing the place where the treasure was buried. The Bragadino family members requested locals’ help in tracking down the treasure, claiming to be only interested in their ancestor’s diary (H. Fedai, personal communication, 1 July 2015 and 25 April 2014). The myth remains vague about whether Bragadino’s descendants managed to locate the hidden treasure, which only further stimulates its appeal and circulation.

‘The Real Story of the Cyprus Peace Operation’ Video A video nine minutes and thirty-eight seconds long, entitled ‘The Real Story of the Cyprus Peace Operation. Watch It Before It Is Removed’, connects to the Lusignan treasure myth and uses it to suggest an alternative explanation for the island’s division and Varosha’s isolation. The video’s producers, Çağhan Emirdazeoğluları and Burad Derebaşı, created the video based on the myth of Guy of Lusignan’s treasure, combined with other myths stimulated by Varosha’s inaccessibility. The video by Emirdazeoğluları was uploaded to YouTube on 12 June 2012 and is narrated in Turkish by the . . . 234 . . .

A Treasure in Varosha

popular Turkish-Cypriot singer Ayhan Başkal. For the purposes of this research the video has been transcribed and translated into English. By 14 April 2014 the video had received 553 comments and been significantly shared and watched. For instance, 1,059 members of the Facebook group Kıbrıs Adası/Cyprus Island shared this video on their profiles, and 331,671 people watched it. The video suggests that the story of Guy of Lusignan’s hidden treasure in Cyprus is true, and that this treasure is the root cause of the conflict on the island. This argument polarized the opinions of its viewers (and commentators). The creator of the video, Emirzadeoğluları, was personally attacked with hate-filled messages and occasionally received death threats (C. Emirzadeoğluları, personal communication, 30 June 2015). For safety reasons he chose to replace his real name with a pseudonym on his YouTube channel. Both Emirzadeoğluları and Derebaşı intended to create a viral video that could generate many likes and views. They used basic persuasive tactics to entice audience members to watch and share this video, such as adding ‘Watch It Before It Is Removed’ to the title. Derebaşı explained: ‘We were watching popular viral videos on YouTube and looking into these videos’ content. We realized that conspiracy theories are very popular in social media’ (B. Derebaşı, personal communication, 3 July 2015). He also mentioned that he has a personal interest in the history of Cyprus and of Jerusalem. The creators listed the content of the most shared videos that related to their interests: Islam, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Jerusalem, the history of religion(s), Ottoman history, the Crusades, Ottoman-Turk won/ lost lands, influences of global forces on Turkey and so on: ‘Therefore, we both thought that we could generate such a story, of course we have chosen the most mysterious place in Cyprus, which is Varosha. We wrote the story and collected some visuals from the internet (and obtaining the permission to use them); then Çağhan arranged with Ayhan Başkal for Ayhan to narrate it. After editing, we were ready’ (B. Derebaşı, personal communication, 3 July 2015). They expected comments and discussions, but they did not expect them to be offensive, insulting, hateful or life-threatening (B. Derebaşı, personal communication, 3 July 2015; C. Emirzadeoğluları, personal communication, 30 June 2015).

Methods of Data-Gathering and Analysis A qualitative textual analysis inspired by Creswell (1994) was implemented in this study. The qualitative approach allowed different layers of meaning . . . 235 . . .

Aysu Arsoy

to be identified in the texts. The goal of this qualitative content analysis was to identify and analyse the role a particular myth (i.e. the one about the Lusignan treasure) plays in the construction of nationalist discourse, in media texts and in the audience responses they trigger. For the purposes of the study, both the content of the video and the viewers’ comments were analysed. All 533 comments that were published in response to the video (by 14 April 2014) were initially examined, but only the 452 comments that indicated a relation with the topic were analysed. The collection and analysis of comments was guided by the standard ethical practices of online research (see e.g. Markham and Buchanan 2012). The responses to the video were publicly available and accessible, and any direct quotes that were used for the analysis were completely anonymized and dissociated from the respondents’ identities. These measures were further strengthened by the comments’ translation from Turkish into English. The analysis followed an open coding approach, allowing the codes and categories to emerge inductively from the material (see Saldaña 2009). After repetitive coding, several persistent patterns became observable in articulations of the Turkish nationalist discourse evoked by the analysed myth and the responses they triggered. The research included also two interviews with the producers of the video to gather more information regarding the creation of the video, and two interviews with the Turkish-Cypriot historian Harid Fedai about the stories of the hidden treasure(s) in Famagusta. All interviews were conducted by the author of this chapter.

Findings and Analysis Both Lusignan’s myth and the way it was narrated in the YouTube video triggered severe backlash and (most likely unintentionally) acted as a counter-myth, at least in part. Many of the viewers’ responses were attempts to protect the Turkish nationalist discourse (and the related dominant articulation of Turkishness) from the perceived threat posed by the video, which then led to reinforcement of the nationalist discourse. Some viewers who could not reconcile parts of the video with the dominant nationalist discourse expressed disbelief and ridicule of the video, again strengthening the nationalist discourse in the process. Three dimensions of the (protective) articulation of the Turkish nationalist discourse emerged from the analysis: (1) the protection of (the purity of) the Turkish language as an indicator of the Turkish national identity, (2) the propagation of an image of Turkey . . . 236 . . .

A Treasure in Varosha

as the motherland saviour of Cyprus, and (3) the elimination of Cypriotness for Turkish-Cypriots, in favour of a Turkish identity. After presenting and discussing these three dimensions, the analysis will also show how this video, and the way it narrates the Lusignan myth, still and simultaneously supports the hegemonic perspectives of Turkish nationalism.

The Purity of the Turkish Language The narrator of the video, Ayhan Başkal, is a famous Turkish-Cypriot singer and composer. He has his own production studio and provides professional services. He had nothing to do with the content of the video, other than to narrate the video’s story in Turkish. It is important to note that although he uses a Turkish-Cypriot accent, he does not use any of the words that the Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot dialects have in common. His aim, it appears, was to use a Turkish accent while avoiding the Cypriot dialect, but he did not manage to do so entirely. The reactions to Başkal’s accent in the viewers’ comments are indicative of how language functions as a significant tool for national identity construction (Oakes 2001; Blommaert 2006) and for the articulation of a nationalist rhetoric. Language is used in ‘defining people as members of a group, excluding any other groups: language has thus functions of both cohesion and differentiation’ (Kızılyürek and Gautier-Kızılyürek 2004: 39). But merely using Turkish words is not enough for someone to be defined as Turk, as dialect and accent also matter. Turkish people are expected to speak ‘pure’ or ‘real’ Turkish, and solely the Istanbul dialect is regarded as such. As early as the 1950s, the ‘Citizen Speak Turkish’ campaign, originally used by Ataturk in the first years of the Republic of Turkey, was brought to Turkish-Cypriot society and schools (ibid: 46–47; Hatay 2015). According to Kızılyürek and Gautier-Kızılyürek (2004: 47), Kemalist Turkey’s etiquette and behaviours were introduced to Turkish-Cypriots as a form of modernism and high culture, with ‘standard Turkish being the high variety and the Turkish Cypriot dialect the low one’. This implied a dual exclusion of Turkish-Cypriots who used the Turkish-Cypriot dialect in this period: in Cyprus they were a linguistic minority on an island dominated by the Greek-Cypriot community, while in mainland Turkey they were seen as less cultured and more primitive than mainland Turks. Returning to the video and the comments that Başkal’s accent triggered, we can see these politics of exclusion and the protection of dominant Turkishness at work. The Turkish-Cypriot dialect is not considered ‘pure’ Turk. . . 237 . . .

Aysu Arsoy

ish; therefore users of this dialect are not real Turks. One example is this comment: ‘Get lost; first get an elocution lesson, my butt can speak better Turkish than you.’ Similarly: ‘It’s clear that the narrator is Turkish speaking Greek. It’s obvious from his dialect.’ Another comment refers to rape by soldiers, a practice of war that sometimes results in pregnancy and consequently (unwanted) offspring, to explain the language use: ‘The narrator has Turkish blood surely, his father might have been called Sergeant Hasan. This is why he speaks some Turkish’. In this case, not only is language impurity connected to inferiority; it also raises suspicions about the video’s creators of the video: ‘Never any Turkish child can generate such a provocative content. It’s clear from his dialect that the narrator is Greek. This video is Greek propaganda’. The Turkish-Cypriot accent of the narrator, seen as an impurity, has disrupted the fantasy of homogeneity and togetherness. At the same time, exclusionary responses protect the hegemonic discourse of the purity of the Turkish identity. Such a national identity is constructed through emphasis of the unifying elements of a nation, that is, through homogenizing practices that eliminate diversity and multiplicities (Smith 1991; Weiner 2008). This would mean that the standards of purity for the Turkish language are set not only in juxtaposition to other languages, but also and mostly in contrast to the different dialects of the Turkish language. The video, and its responses show that the fantasy of Turkish national homogeneity entails the ‘denial of differences’ (Hickman 1998: 299), rendering the language dialects incompatible with language purity.

Turkey as (Motherland) Saviour Parts of the video and many comments reproduce one of the main discourses of Turkish nationalism, portraying motherland Turkey as the saviour of Cyprus. For example, the video mentions that ‘with Turkey’s military intervention in 1974, the Turkish citizens were saved and the northern part of the island was conquered’. Also, the video’s statement that ‘Turkish and Greek [Rum] people lived together in Cyprus until 1974, however, after the military operation performed under the leadership of Turkey, the island was divided and the north became a Turkish compound’ triggered the following comment: ‘Wrong! It argues that the island was divided after the Turkish military movement. Turkey did it because they were killing Turks. They wanted to make Cyprus a Greek Island.’ In this case, the Turkish

. . . 238 . . .

A Treasure in Varosha

military operation, which resulted in the occupation of approximately 38 per cent of the island, is described as a movement, pointing to its objective of liberation. Also, the discourse of Turkey as saviour is coupled with another discourse that reverses the discourse of Turkey as perpetrator and attributes blame to the other, that is, to Greece. This positioning of the self versus the enemy-other is consistent with the work of authors such as Carpentier (2015), who have explained how the construction of the identity of the self entails an antagonistic construction of the identity of the other, and how especially in cases of conflict, ‘the edges of imagined communities at war, which are blurred in more normal circumstances, become impenetrable frontiers between “us” and “them”, between the Self and the Enemy’ (ibid.: 2). The Turkish identity in this case is constructed as the opposite of the Greek through a series of binaries (saviour/perpetrator, victim/villain, hero/enemy).

The Elimination of Cypriotness As explained earlier, the Turkish nationalist project denies any Cypriot identity to Turkish-Cypriots (Kızılyürek and Gautier-Kızılyürek 2004), considering them either Turks or Greeks (but not Cypriots). Comments such as ‘The weak bloods’, ‘Greek brat’, ‘Cypriots who are against Turkey and the Turkish military, f..k you!’, can be understood through this ideological argument. Rauf Raif Denktash, the first president and one of the founders of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), had a significant role in placing and cultivating Turkish nationalism in relation to Turkish-Cypriots. Denktash perceived Turkish-Cypriots ‘as an extension of the people from Turkey’ and claimed that ‘there is no difference between the Turks of Cyprus and the Turks of Turkey’ (Hatay 2008: 152). This type of argumentation can be recognized in the following comments: ‘I wish you had some Denktash spirit. You all became Greek.’ Also: ‘He needed to leave those Greek brats to their real owners. Who knows how many Turkish soldiers died in the peace operation; How many years they imposed embargoes to the country. For what? For stateless, raceless Greek Brats? Except for the Denktash followers; Turks from the mainland come and work in there and those brats go and work in the Greek side.’ In the last comment, Turkey appears also as the motherland that makes unacknowledged sacrifices, and Turkish-Cypriots are seen as traitors to the motherland. Turkish-Cypriots’

. . . 239 . . .

Aysu Arsoy

dependence on Turkey, which has also an economic dimension, in combination with the critique of being spoilt (as captured by the word ‘brat’ in the previous quote) and ungrateful, is expressed also here: ‘You receive everything from Turkey, but you ask British pounds for the rental of houses, you are all thieves.’ Serving the nationalist discourse that works through binaries and defines Turkish-Cypriots as either Turks or non-Turks/Greeks, some comments refer to Cypriots and Greeks alike, and the dispute opens up to include other islands of the Aegean that, according to Turkish nationalism, do not belong to Greece but to Turkey: ‘You faggots, we are coming as sons of the sultans. Do not worry about Cyprus but worry about the islands you had stolen from us. When Turkey rises, Greece will fall and it is time to stand for us’. This comment exposes, not only the national identity, but also the gender identity of ‘non-real’ Turks. This reaction is consistent with the hegemonic discourse on national identity as primarily male (Sharp 1996).

A Myth that Is Still Legitimizing Turkish Nationalism In the video, myths and conspiracy theories are used in a way that is also supportive of Turkish nationalism. The analysis identified two main myths in the video that are used interchangeably to explain the situation in Cyprus, and more specifically in Varosha: the existence of a treasure in Varosha (as the real reason that the city remains isolated), and the intervention of external forces (said to have triggered the Turkish invasion of Cyprus and prevented the solution of the Cyprus Problem and the resettlement of Varosha). According to the video, Guy of Lusignan was a Crusader Knight of French origins who came to the Kingdom of Jerusalem through marriage. Lusignan, together with Raynald of Chatillon,4 with their anti-Islamist and vengeful attitude towards Muslims, had a great role in the outbreak of the Hattin War.5 They annoyed Saladin Ayyubit6 with their anti-Muslim acts and triggered Saladin Ayyubit’s declaration of war against Jerusalem.

Lusignan is presented as a foreigner with a different religion, hateful towards Islam and Muslims, while the wars and clashes in the Middle East and the Mediterranean region during the twelfth and thirteenth centuries are simplistically explained as a reaction to anti-Islamic sentiments, relieving the Muslims of responsibility for their military operations. . . . 240 . . .

A Treasure in Varosha

The video also claims that CIA documents verifying the existence of the Lusignan treasure in Cyprus came to light in the mid-twentieth century, and it was then that the powerful Rothschild and Rockefeller families became interested in Cyprus. The narration implies that their interest was connected to the Lusignan treasure and mentions that these families supported ‘violent and intolerable anti-Turkish acts’. The video continues to argue that ‘the Turkish citizens’ were saved by the Turkish military intervention in 1974, which resulted in the conquest of the northern part of the island. This story depicts Turkey (like the Muslims earlier) as the victim of bigger, external forces and legitimates Turkey’s actions by articulating them as an intervention that saved a brother population. Also, crucial information – what exactly triggered the two families’ interest, what the anti-Turkish acts were, who carried them out and against whom, whom the Turkish citizens were saved from – is omitted. This part of the video presents the Rothschild family as one of the most important Illuminati and a cause of world problems, while seeing the Rockefeller family as in control of the United States and supported by the Rothschild family. It uses the assumption of a conspiracy between these families to transfer responsibility for the invasion in Cyprus away from Turkey and onto secret organizations and mystified forces. It retells history through the use of fictional stories and myths, and legitimates military operations and wars as heroic actions and a patriotic duty. Thus, history is naturalized (Fiske 1990: 89; Barthes 1972) and historical events are cleared of their ideological dimensions. Viewers do not necessarily believe these conspiracy stories, which sometimes incite strong reactions: ‘Stupidity, much wrong information’, or ‘You are either idiot or provocateur’. They also make humorous or ironic comments, questioning the factuality of the myths: ‘Illuminati controls Turkey with a brain transplant’. And later on: ‘I wonder when is 600-year-old Guy going to die? Since he moved to Cyprus, he is still alive?’ Other viewers, reacting directly to the story of the treasure, comment: ‘It’s a pity to leave the treasure rot in there, let’s go and have it’ and ‘The gold belongs to the Turks, except for the Justice and Development Party (AKP) followers’. In most if not all cases, regardless of whether the viewers are critical or not, and regardless of whether they believe or question the story, they do not challenge the support that is offered to the hegemonic discourse of Turkish nationalism. Thus, this ideological framework, behind a myth that presents events as products of external (or divine) forces, or as natural (Barthes 1972; Chandler 2002: 254) and not as historical or social products (Fiske, 1990: 89), is not challenged but rather validated. . . . 241 . . .

Aysu Arsoy

Conclusions This study, acknowledging the ideological dimension of myths, has examined the complex role of a particular myth in the construction and support of hegemonic discourses of Turkish national identity. Myths function as multipliers of particular beliefs and discourses. They can succeed in generating a common-sense about particular issues and discourses, since their often naïve or innocent context can cover up complex and sensitive issues, like those related to history. They can also work successfully in exactly the opposite way, by triggering disbelief and resistance that in turn strengthen a particular identity discourse. Most interestingly, they can do both at the same time. In this way myths can serve to narrate both historical and fictional events. Their strength lies in the blending of facts and fiction that obscures the boundaries between the two. They have the capacity to de-historize or re-historize events of the past by rendering them as easy-to-tell stories, disconnecting history from its social or political environment and rendering it ‘depoliticized speech’ (Barthes 1972: 143). Myths thus have the power to naturalize history and assist in the construction of a nation’s identity through the attribution of Manichaeistic binaries like good/evil, hero/ coward, victim/villain, and so on (Triandafyllidou 1998). Then again, and much less documented, they can also support national identity by offering a sparring partner that can easily be defeated by mockery or abuse, through which the national identity can then be confirmed and celebrated. This study focused on a YouTube video that uses a myth to produce its own account of the reasons behind Cyprus’s division and Turkey’s role in it. As the analysis of the video’s comments showed, their content largely reflects the hegemonic Turkish nationalist discourse about Turkish-Cypriots’ Turkish origins, which is incompatible with any possibility of Cypriotness. The articulation of this discourse allows Turkey’s military intervention in Cyprus to be legitimated as a peace operation, in line with the discourse of the impossibility of Turkish-Cypriots’ and Greek-Cypriots’ peaceful co-existence in one country. At the same time, the viewers’ comments reveal another discourse that questions the idea that Turkish-Cypriots are real Turks, addressed mostly through issues regarding the purity of the Turkish language. However contradictory this may seem, the two positions, myth and counter-myth, can actually coexist, since no hegemonic discourse is completely homogeneous, even though the discourse on national identity is pretty much about the fantasy of homogeneity (Smith 1991; Triandafyllidou . . . 242 . . .

A Treasure in Varosha

1998). Thus, even as the Turkish-Cypriot accent of the video’s narrator may be seen as a token of non-pure Turkishness, it also facilitates the preservation of the hegemonic discourse regarding the purity of the Turkish identity. Since the national identity is constructed around the articulation of unity and homogeneity, entailing the ‘denial of differences’ (Hickman 1998: 299), the standards of purity of the Turkish language are set not only in comparison with other languages, but also in juxtaposition to the different dialects of the Turkish language. As Barthes (1972: 143) contends, myth purifies events and discourses: ‘it makes them innocent, it gives them a natural and eternal justification, it gives them a clarity which is not that of an explanation but that of a statement of fact’. Through this process of naturalization, myth ‘deprives the object of which it speaks of all History. In it, history evaporates’ and the actors involved are absolved of responsibility (ibid.: 151). In a similar vein, the use of myth in the analysed video assists in naturalizing the contradictions in the hegemonic discourse of Turkish nationalism by re-narrating history through a blend of facts and fiction, turning history into a story.

AYSU ARSOY is Assistant Professor at the Department of Visual Arts and Visual Communication Design at Eastern Mediterranean University. She is author/co-author of several book chapters and articles pertaining to media myths, social media, cybercrime, and media exposure of children, and has been a speaker at international media and research seminars. As a consultant, she contributed to the development of policies and regulations for cybercrime legislation. She has researched, exhibited and presented visual ethnography visual sociology and visual rhetoric, in Cyprus and the United States, and is a member of EU kids online.

Notes 1.

The video’s title in Turkish is ‘Kıbrıs Barış Harekatının Gerçek Sebebi SİLİNMEDEN İZLEYİN!’ and its duration is 9 minutes and 38 seconds. It was created by Caghan Emirzadeoğluları and Burak Derebaşı and narrated by Ayhan Baskal. It was uploaded to YouTube on 12 June 2012 by Emirzadeoğluları and can be found at: https://www .youtube.com/watch?v=6nQz7OzpEwc. 2. In the Turkish nationalist discourse, the Turkish military operation is defined as intervention. Within this discourse, a peace operation liberated Turkish-Cypriots from the . . . 243 . . .

Aysu Arsoy

3. 4.

5.

6.

Greek-Cypriot (and Greek military) forces and ended the mass killing of Turkish-Cypriots. The Greek-Cypriot dominant discourse sees the Turkish military action as invasion. Within this discourse, the division of the island and the establishment of Turkish military bases are seen as occupation. The settlement of populations from Turkey in the north and the use of Greek-Cypriot properties are considered unacceptable consequences of this occupation and the legitimacy of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), usually referred to as a pseudo-state, is not accepted. Retrieved 10 August 2015 from http://www.un.org/en/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol =S/RES/550(1984). Raynald of Châtillon (1125–1187) was Prince of Antioch from 1153 to 1160 (or 1161), and Lord of Oultrejordain from 1175 until his death by the hand of Saladin. The Lordship of Oultrejordain was one of the four major Vassals of the Kingdom of Jerusalem (https:// global.britannica.com/biography/Reginald-of-Chatillon). The Battle of Hattin was fought on 4 July 1187 between the forces of Sultan Saladin and the Crusader-held Kingdom of Jerusalem. Led by Saladin, the Muslim army won the battle, and Muslims retook control of the Holy Land, conquering Jerusalem and other Crusader-held cities (Man 2015). Saladin (1137–1193), the first sultan of Egypt and Syria and the founder of the Ayyubid dynasty, led the Muslim military campaign against the Crusader states in the Levant. Saladin’s sultanate included Egypt, Syria, Upper Mesopotamia, the Hejaz, Yemen and other parts of North Africa (Man 2015).

References Anastasiou, H. 2008. The Broken Olive Branch: Nationalism, Ethnic Conflict and the Quest for Peace in Cyprus: The Impasse of Ethnonationalism. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press. Asmussen, J. 2008. Cyprus at War: Diplomacy and Conflict During the 1974 Crisis. London: I.B. Tauris. Barthes, R. 1972. Mythologies, trans. A. Lavers. London: Jonathan Cape. Bignell, J. 2002. Media Semiotics: An Introduction, 2nd edn. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Blommaert, J. 2006. ‘Language Policy and National Identity’, in T. Ricento (ed.), An Introduction to Language Policy: Theory and Method. Malden, MA: Blackwell, pp. 238–54. Bottici, C. 2007. A Philosophy of Political Myth. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Brewer, D. 2010. Greece, The Hidden Centuries: Turkish Rule from the Fall of Constantinople to Greek Independence. London: I.B. Tauris. Brown, A.C., and H.W. Catling. Cyprus Ancient History. London: Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford. Carpentier, N. 2015. ‘Introduction: Strengthening Cultural War Studies’, in N. Carpentier (ed.), Culture, Trauma, and Conflict: Cultural Studies Perspectives on War, 2nd edn. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars, pp. 1–20. Cawley, C. 2011. ‘Medieval Lands: Cyprus’, Foundation for Medieval Genealogy. Retrieved 18 May 2014 from http://fmg.ac/Projects/MedLands/CYPRUS.htm. Chandler, D. 2002. Semiotics: The Basics, 2nd edn. London: Routledge. ‘The Constitution of the Republic Of Turkey Article 66: Turkish Citizenship’. The Grand National Assembly of Turkey Official Web Site. Retrieved 27 December 2015 from https://www .tbmm.gov.tr/develop/owa/anayasaeng.maddeler?p3=66. Creswell, J.W. 1994. Research Design: Qualitative and Quantitative Approaches. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Earle, E.M. 1925. ‘The New Constitution of Turkey’, Political Science Quarterly 40(1): 73–100. Retrieved 3 May 2016 from http://genckaya.bilkent.edu.tr/1924constitution.pdf. . . . 244 . . .

A Treasure in Varosha Erdoğdu, A.M. 2009. Kıbrıs’ta Osmanlılar II. Nicosia: Galeri Kültür Yayınları. Faustmann, H. 2009. ‘The Colonial Legacy of Division’, in J. Ker-Lindsay and H. Faustmann (eds), The Government and Politics of Cyprus. Bern: Peter Lang, pp. 45–62. Feros, S., and P. Phokaides. 2006. ‘Modern Architecture in Cyprus between the 1930s and 1970s: The Search for Modern Heritage’, Docomomo Journal 35: 15–19. Fiske, J. 1990. Introduction to Communication Studies, 2nd edn. London: Routledge. Goodwin, J. 1984. An Historical Toponymy of Cyprus, 4th edn. Nicosia: private publication. Gramsci, A. 1999. Selections from the Prison Notebooks, ed. and trans. Q. Hoare and G.N. Smith. London: The Electronic Book Company. Hatay, M. 2008. ‘The Problem of Pigeons: Orientalism, Xenophobia and a Rhetoric of the “Local” in North Cyprus’, The Cyprus Review 20(2): 145–71. ———. 2015. ‘Kıbrıs’ta “Medeniyet” ve Öz Türkçe isim Mücadelesi’, Poli, Havadis Newspaper, 25 October. Hickman, M. 1998. ‘Reconstructing Deconstructing “Race”: British Political Discourses about the Irish in Britain’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 21(2): 288–307. Kelsey, D. 2015. Media, Myth and Terrorism: A Discourse-Mythological Analysis of the ‘Blitz Spirit’ in British Newspaper Responses to the July 7th Bombings. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Keshishian, K.K. 1985. Famagusta Town and District: A Survey of Its People and Places from Ancient Times. Limassol: The Famagusta Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Zavallis Press. Kızılyürek, N., and S. Gautier-Kızılyürek. 2004. ‘The Politics of Identity in the Turkish Cypriot Community and the Language Question’, International Journal of the Sociology of Language 168: 37–54. Man, J. 2015. Saladin: The Life, the Legend and the Islamic Empire. London: Transworld. Markham, A., and E. Buchanan. 2012. Ethical Decision-Making and Internet Research: Recommendations from the AoIR Ethics Working Committee (Version 2.0). Retrieved 6 March 2017 from http://www.dphu.org/uploads/attachements/books/books_5612_0.pdf. Mavratsas, C.V. 2016. ‘The Cyprus Conflict: National Mythologies and Real Tragedies’, in J. Carter, G. Irani and V.D. Volkan (eds), Regional and Ethnic Conflicts: Perspectives from the Front Lines. Oxon: Routledge, pp. 56–69. Michael, M.S. 2009. Resolving the Cyprus Conflict: Negotiating History. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Oakes, L. 2001. Language and National Identity: Comparing France and Sweden. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Papadakis, Y. 2005. Echoes from the Dead Zone: Across the Cyprus Divide. London: I.B. Tauris. Reid, J.B.J. 2011. ‘A Theoretical Exploration of the Construction of Counter Myth: A Case Study of Post Apartheid South African Film’, PhD dissertation. Pretoria: University of South Africa. Retrieved 10 September 2015 from http://uir.unisa.ac.za/handle/10500/ 5961. Saldaña, J. 2009. The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Sharp, J.P. 1996. ‘Gendering Nationhood: A Feminist Engagement with National Identity’, in N. Duncan (ed.), Bodyspace: Destabilizing Geographies of Gender and Sexuality. London: Routledge, pp. 97–107. Smith, A.D. 1991. National Identity. London: Penguin Books. Triandafyllidou, A. 1998. ‘National Identity and the “Other”’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 21(4): 593–612. Weiner, M. (ed.). 2008. Japan’s Minorities: The Illusion of Homogeneity. Oxon: Routledge.

. . . 245 . . .

Chapter 11

P

AX TROIKANA

The U.K. Media and the Symbolic Conflicts of the Cypriot ‘Rescue’ Programme

Giulia Airaghi and Maria Avraamidou

Introduction In March 2013, Cyprus1 signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the European troika (i.e. the European Central Bank [ECB], European Commission and International Monetary Fund [IMF]) on an agreed programme to ‘rescue’ its economy. It thus became the fifth Eurozone state to be bailed out, but the only one required to recapitalize its banks from within (‘bail in’) on top of austerity and privatizations. With an economy of 0.2 per cent of the Eurozone (Trimikliniotis 2013), Cyprus initially requested aid through the European Stability Mechanism (ESM) in June 2012 to cope with persisting economic problems. The country’s two largest domestic banks, Popular Bank of Cyprus (Laiki) and Bank of Cyprus (BoC) were on the brink of collapse, with capital needs amounting to €7.8 billion, or 45 per cent of the Cypriot GDP (Central Bank of Cyprus 2013).2 The government of Cyprus and the troika reached an initial agreement on 15 March 2013, after approximately eight months of negotiations. As part of the deal, the troika required Cyprus to ‘tax’ depositors to cover (bail in) an estimated3 €5.8 billion of the bailout, on which condition troika would provide €10 billion. According to this agreement, the deposits in Cypriot banks would be subjected to a levy (‘haircut’) of 6.75 per cent for insured and of 9.9 per cent for non-insured deposits, below and above €100,000 respectively. This decision was strongly condemned, both domestically and internationally, since the provision for a haircut of

Pax Troikana

insured deposits (those up to €100,000) was seen as ‘a surprising rewriting of the rules of capitalist prudence’ (Demetriou 2013), while speculators across the globe feared a domino effect. The deal was rejected by the Cypriot parliament. Ten days later (25 March 2013) the Cypriot government and the troika announced an altered agreement, still based on a bail-in/bail-out scheme, which would ‘protect the secured’ deposits (below €100,000). The agreement provided for the shut-down of Laiki Bank, with all its deposits above €100,000 wiped out. Thereafter, all its customers and associated assets/liabilities would be transferred to BoC. BoC’s secured deposits were not levied, but its unsecured deposits would be slashed by 47.5 per cent. As events unfolded a Cypriot commentator tweeted, ‘Pax Troikana’,4 Latin for ‘Troikan Peace’ probably used to imply that Cyprus’s escape from official bankruptcy came at a cost, as the troika would oversee its new social, economic, and by extent political status-quo. The present study focuses on the coverage of the haircut-related events by the United Kingdom (U.K.) elite press. The U.K. is a country that holds special interest for this study, for a number of reasons. First, it has had long-lasting and close relations with Cyprus. Cyprus was a British colony from 1878 to 1960,5 and the U.K. retains two sovereign bases on the island to this day. Currently, about 4 per cent of Cypriot inhabitants hail from the U.K. (Cyprus Statistical Service 2011). Thus, the British media tend to pay special attention to news that concerns Cyprus and the British citizens on the island. At the same time, the U.K.’s position in the EU was always peculiar. At the time of research the U.K. was a member of the EU but not of the European Monetary Union (EMU), and it always maintained a cautious if not distrustful position on how close it should come to the European Union. It should be noted here that the analysis in this study reflects the U.K.’s Euroscepticism as it stood at the time of research, while the country was still a member of the EU, and was not conducted through a post-EU (after-Brexit) lens. Through the critical lenses of conflict theory,6 we see the Cypriot ‘bailout’ as an example of hegemonic power exercised via the troika. This unofficial lending body is seen as trying to further the institutionalization of a particular type of socioeconomic model of neoliberalism in EMU states. We understand Europe to have a class of transnational capitalists who are able to influence European institutions and, under conditions of financial crisis, to impose their hegemony through institutions that enforce and then monitor aid to EMU-indebted states. Drawing on Gramsci’s (1975) theory of hegemony, the analysis aims to unpack U.K. mainstream media’s efforts to build consensus about (or . . . 247 . . .

Giulia Airaghi and Maria Avraamidou

resistance to) the causes, management, and effects of the Eurozone economic crisis as a ‘conflict’ over power rather than an ‘economic crisis’. We employ the concept of hegemony to understand the Cypriot case within the wider Eurozone crisis, which is part of the even wider global capitalist crisis around financialization. Through a qualitative media analysis, we examine the British media’s efforts and hegemonic strategies for building consensus around the events and the conflicts they entail. This chapter explores the existence of two kinds of hegemonies in Europe and the Eurozone: the hegemony of capitalism and the hegemony of Germany, exercised predominantly through the troika. The chapter empirically investigates the construction and/or negotiation of these hegemonies from the perspective of a strong international actor, the U.K., by exploring tacit meanings and ideas in two mainstream news media, The Guardian and The Telegraph. In explicating the U.K. media’s reaction to the Cypriot ‘bailout’ as a symbolic conflict (of policies, ideologies and interests), this chapter will illustrate dominant and less dominant ideological positions in the U.K. and link them not only to the handling of the Cypriot crisis, but also to the U.K.’s (re)positioning in its controversial relations with the EU.

U.K.-EU Relations and the EMU Economic Crisis U.K.-EU relations have always been characterized by a pervasive ambivalence. Oliver (2015: 78) described it as a difficult relationship of ‘aloofness, vetoes and opt-outs’. He attributed the U.K.’s resistance to European integration to economic and political factors (Oliver 2015) while others attributed it to nationalism (Wellings 2010), but ultimately all such explanations come down to issues of sovereignty. Political, popular and economic sovereignty were institutionalized in the U.K. in ways that produced tensions in relations with and within the EU, as European integration typically required (and still requires) compromising on one or more lines of sovereignty (Gifford 2010: 324). Furthermore, a significant share of the U.K. public always embraced Euroscepticism (Artis 2006; Bulmer 2008; Smith 2005). In many respects the 2007/08 global financial crisis heightened British Euroscepticism. Notably, given its over-expanded banking system, the U.K., as a financial centre, opted to manage the crisis by maintaining the trust of the financial markets. Thus it reacted to the threat of the collapse of its entire banking system more quickly than other EU states. It adopted a bank rescue plan that included liquidity, recapitalizations and government . . . 248 . . .

Pax Troikana

guarantees of banks’ new debt (Quaglia 2009). Further, the U.K. government initiated unprecedented financial interventions to ‘rescue’ banks on the brink of collapse (French, Leyshon and Thrift 2009: 289), putting two banks under public ownership and providing financial aid to another in 2007 (Kickert 2012). Furthermore, the U.K. leadership appeared frustrated with what they considered the EU core’s inability to deal effectively with the EMU crisis (‘David Cameron’s EU Speech’ 2013). This frustration also lent support to the (legitimation of the) decision on the referendum that decided the U.K.’s ‘divorce’ from the EU.

Hegemony and Symbolic Violence in Crisis-Stricken Europe To understand how events unfolded between the troika and Cyprus, we use the interrelated concepts of hegemony and symbolic violence. We argue that the troika facilitates the imposition of the hegemonies of capitalism and of Germany in the EU through acts of symbolic violence, specifically represented by the mechanism of debt. Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992: 272) defined symbolic violence as ‘the violence exercised upon a social agent with her or his complicity’, noting that the agent is not conscious of the violence. Through the mechanism of recognition,7 social agents accept the world and its cognitive structures as natural and defined, enacting a doxic acceptance of the world. According to Bourdieu and Wacquant, ‘[o]f all forms of “hidden persuasion”, the most implacable is the one exerted, quite simply, by the order of things’ (ibid.: 273). Symbolic violence is implicit in every hegemonic order. Gramsci (1975) argues that hegemony is the capacity to exercise power through consensus instead of (military) force, with a specific focus on the discursive and relational dimension of power. Symbolic violence, which is subtle and hidden, substitutes for physical violence. Neo-Gramscian scholars stress that hegemony is not a static condition but a complex and conflicting process whereby multiple actors struggle to influence each other and obtain consensus from subordinated actors (Laclau and Mouffe 2001). A hegemonic class is therefore a class that ‘has been able to articulate the interests of other social groups to its own by means of ideological struggle’ (Mouffe 1979: 181). Although Gramsci conceptualized hegemony in relation to the state, the concept has been applied to cases of supra–state-like institutions such as the EU (Durand and Keucheyan 2015) as well as to other international political spheres (Cox 1983; Morton 2003). The aim of the hegemonic class is to present the state as a collective project pursuing . . . 249 . . .

Giulia Airaghi and Maria Avraamidou

the collective interest. Thus, as Gramsci (1975: 182) notes, ‘the dominant group is coordinated concretely with the general interest of the subordinate groups, and the life of the state is conceived of as a continuous process of formation and superseding of unstable equilibria between the interests of the fundamental group and those of the subordinate group’. Ideology forms the collective will, a synthesis of divergent interests; as Mouffe notes, ‘its very existence depends on the creation of ideological unity which will serve as “cement”’ (1979: 184). She argues further that ‘though hegemony is ethic-political, it must also be economic, must necessarily be based on the decisive function exercised by the leading group in the decisive nucleus of economic activity’ (ibid.: 183). This approach led us to identify two different kinds of hegemony in the EU – of capitalism and of Germany – both exercised through European institutions and European policies, in particular fiscal and monetary policy. The troika is a major body through which these hegemonies are exercised. The troika’s institutions participate at meetings of the EMU’s finance ministers, called ‘Eurogroup’, and co-decide on bailout programmes. Thereafter, the Eurogroup decisions are discussed at the Economic and Financial Affairs Council (ECOFIN) of the EU Council meeting, in which all EU member states participate.8 Dominant discourses tend to present Europe as a collective project in which all nations participate in a democratic decision-making process to enact common policies, pursuing collective interest. In fact, the EU resembles the Gramscian idea of the state. The economically strongest members dominate decisions in favour of their interest in expanding the market through the European integration process, presenting it as in the interest of economically weaker members as a means to become ‘full-developed economies’ (Stockhammer 2013). Yet economic criteria set for annexation respond to economic models typical of northern countries, penalizing southern economies (Stockhammer 2008). Notably, as the current crisis has shown, some member states with ‘weak’ economies cannot keep up with EU economic standards and are forced to ask for economic aid. This activates the mechanism of debt that Graeber (2014) identified as a form of domination that constitutes symbolic violence. The hegemony of capitalism is strongly linked with a European integration process characterized by the ascendancy of finance and the marginalization of labour, as attested by the core competencies of Europe: trade, competition and money (Boyer 2000, 2013; Durand and Keucheyan 2015; Stockhammer 2008). This resulted in the monopolization of the European political agenda by a transnational and financial class of capitalists (Durand . . . 250 . . .

Pax Troikana

and Keucheyan 2015; Van Apeldoorn 2013) that pushed for the creation of an internal market and a common currency to enhance the flow of capital (Van Apeldoorn 2013: 192). As Boyer (2000) and Durand and Keucheyan (2015: 2) have argued, the establishment of the Eurozone shifted the priority from labour to competition, leading to the domination of finances. According to Van Apeldoorn (2013) the European Round Table of Industrialists9 ‘played an agenda-setting role for the institutions of the EU’ (ibid.: 191). In these formations, ‘it was Germany (or the Bundesbank) who wrote the rules for the new currency’ (Stockhammer 2013: 11), as it relied on an export-driven growth model while peripheral European countries relied on a debt-driven growth model (ibid.). In theory, the creation of a single financial market led to uniform interest rates across Europe. In practice, the result was that capital flowed from Germany, France and the U.K. to economically weaker EU members (Stockhammer 2013: 9). The 2007/08 financial crisis, as Durand and Keucheyan (2015: 9) argue, lent ‘further impetus to financial hegemony’ and drew more attention to the integration of the financial market, with a specific focus on financial stability – that is, on further increasing the hegemony of capitalism across the EMU.

Media, Hegemony and the Economic Crisis/Conflict The mainstream media continue to play an important role as cultural institutions in the reproduction of dominant ideologies and the building of consensus (Carragee 1993; Doudaki 2015; Hall 1982; Hall et al. 1978; Mylonas 2012). The critical concept of hegemony is particularly valuable in understanding their role in conditions of an internationalized economic crisis, since significant conflicts of interest emerge from unequal power relations at the local and international levels. Hegemony reveals this unequal distribution of power in capitalism, a distribution that needs to be accounted for in examinations of symbolic production (Carragee 1993; Williams 1977). In other words, the concept unravels the role of ideas in legitimizing measures like the troika’s ‘bailouts’. When representing conflicts, media may silence the roots of these conflicts and present their consequences as ‘natural’, thus reproducing certain understandings while naturalizing predominant ideologies in a given society. However, opposition can still be articulated within the media themselves (Croteau, Hoynes and Milan 2011: 165). Still, following Hall and his colleagues (1978), we argue that even when mainstream media offer conflicting interpretations of events, they still assist the construction of social consensus. . . . 251 . . .

Giulia Airaghi and Maria Avraamidou

Pre-Brexit studies provide evidence of U.K. media disapproval and/ or scepticism of EU management of the crisis and overall criticism of the EU as a source of the 2007/08 European financial crisis (Bickes, Otten and Weymann 2014). Lampropoulou (2014: 2) argued that the U.K. media positioned Eurozone actors in ways that contributed to ‘sustain social inequality in the broader socio-cultural context’. Overall, neoliberal ideology was prominent in the U.K. media long before the 2007/08 financial crisis. It was infused with anti-welfare and anti-government rhetoric in the mid-1960s, open endorsement of neoliberalism in the 1970s and support of privatization in the 1980s and 1990s (Berry 2016). Even at moments of economic and financial crisis in the mid-1990s, U.K. media have been found to expose the fragility of the neoliberal discourse, but not to challenge it (Hudson and Martin 2010: 103). Outside the U.K., other studies focused on media coverage of economic crises have furthered the argument that the media play a major role in reproducing hegemony and building consensus. Mylonas (2012: 649) showed that the media contributed to the culturalization of the crisis and the naturalization of the ‘free market’ economistic ideology by framing a ‘capitalist crisis as a debt crisis’. Others illustrated the media’s role in legitimating bailout programmes and specifically austerity within, and beyond, indebted states (Doudaki 2015; Kutter 2014; Lampropoulou 2014). Kutter (2014) showed the media’s contribution to the institutionalization of a specific model of EU economic governance policies. Bickes, Otten and Weymann (2014) illuminated the media’s discursive construction of indebted Eurozone countries – to different extents – as a ‘threat’ to the rest of the Eurozone but also as ‘weak’ and ‘helpless’. Tracy (2012) unpacked ways that the media reproduced the economic crisis as a natural disaster, or as self-inflicted in the case of indebted Greece. By contrast, Kutter (2014: 455) argued that the German financial press’s discursive construction of the economic crisis attributed explicit blame primarily to EU leaders ‘for dissent and deception during multilateral negotiations’ and to the German government for blocking ‘necessary decisions, prioritizing domestic electoral politics and applying double standards’. He found that the German financial press rarely blamed Greece or other indebted Eurozone states. Nevertheless, Thompson (2013: 222) argued that the media are ‘structurally predisposed to reinforce market consensus’. The current chapter contributes to this literature by unpacking a small part of the media/economic crisis nexus in the course of analysing tacit meanings in the U.K. media in relation to the Cypriot ‘haircut’.

. . . 252 . . .

Pax Troikana

Methodology Even though neoliberal ideology may enjoy increased prominence in the U.K. media and may have dominated the coverage of the economic crisis (Berry 2016), we selected The Guardian/Observer and The Telegraph to explore potential diversified approaches to the Cypriot haircut. Scholars praise both newspapers as ‘quality’ (Lampropoulou 2014: 6; Sparks 1987: 427) or ‘serious’ (Breeze 2014: 243). The Guardian/Observer is described as ‘liberal’ (Lampropoulou 2014: 6 ) or centre-left, moderate on finances, and rather pro-European (Breeze 2014; Touri and Rogers 2013). The Telegraph is characterized as conservative and rather Eurosceptic (Touri and Rogers 2013). We adopted a qualitative methodological approach, using thematic qualitative analysis (Braun and Clarke 2006), and we focus on ‘quality’ mainstream media because, as Doudaki (2015: 3) writes, ‘the dominant mainstream media are privileged spaces where the main discourses of society are reconstructed, most often by hegemonic actors offering their interpretations on social reality and their views on both the dominant and alternative versions of reality’. Thus we believe we will be able to investigate predominant arguments in the U.K. through these newspapers. Choosing media of different political traditions ensured a richer sample, allowing us to analyse a variety of opinions. We collected data, published in the online versions of both newspapers, on the Cypriot ‘bailout’ between 1 March 2013 and 27 March 2013, a period corresponding to the timing of the first and second Eurogroup decisions. The initial search resulted in a vast number of items, confirming that the event had attracted significant media attention in the U.K. Our sample was purposeful: we focused on commentaries and editorials. We defined commentaries as analyses of a newsworthy event that include the personal biases of their authors, unlike hard news, which is supposed to be objective and factual. Choosing editorials alone would have given us only the newspapers’ official positions instead of authors’ perspectives; moreover, in the selected period the editorials published were too few to build an analysis. Thus we included commentaries published in the two newspapers. The corpus consisted of forty-three articles. The Guardian contributed twenty-three, of which four were editorials, nine had the byline ‘Guardian staff’ and ten named external columnists as authors. The Telegraph contributed twenty items: four editorials with the byline Telegraph View, one editorial by ‘Telegraph staff’, and fifteen commentaries, all written by staff save one by a regular columnist and a second by a former staff member. . . . 253 . . .

Giulia Airaghi and Maria Avraamidou

Rather than using predetermined analytic categories, we let themes emerge from the data. We coded all data using the same codes and then defined prevalent analytical themes that were directly linked to the scope of our research. To make the arguments of the analysis clearer and give the readers a form of verification, we provide examples from the data.

Contesting and Supporting Hegemonies As will become clear through the analysis, the two newspapers offer representations of the symbolic conflict between the troika and Cyprus that naturalize core capitalist principles and by extension capitalism. Both the troika’s policy and Germany’s hegemonic role in imposing harsh (and unfair) measures on a weak country are critiqued. Frustration is expressed about the potential consequences of Germany’s handling of the EMU crisis outside the EMU and for the entire EU and the international status quo, but at the same time, the critique is not oriented towards the banking system or the capitalist structures, but is instead framed in terms of Germany’s/ the troika’s (mis)handling of the crisis. Against this ‘reality’, the U.K. is presented as an outside/inside actor that has to safeguard its own interests.

The Troika’s ‘Ruthlessness’ towards Weak Actors A common position among commentators is that the EU failed to ‘save’ Cyprus by acting as a real union, and instead sacrificed a weak member: ‘Yet, amazingly, European officials did next to nothing to shore up the island’s financial system. There was ample time to protect savers with Cypriot banks and to restructure the institutions. Despite a decade of existence and a 17-nation membership, even over the smallest crisis the euro area just cannot do collective action’ (The Guardian, 24 March 2013). What is implied in this editorial is that the European institutions were not only uninterested in protecting one of their members, but also served special interests and agendas. Regardless of whether Cypriot actors were seen as sharing the blame for their economy’s turmoil, opinions in both newspapers recurrently conceptualized the bailout programme as strong actors dominating weaker nation states in another case of imposition and democratic deficit in the EMU, using the word ‘bullying’ to describe the troika’s actions: ‘Then again, the euro club has made rather an unappealing habit of bullying the weak nations and protecting the strong over this crisis’ (The Guardian, 28 . . . 254 . . .

Pax Troikana

March 2013). Calling bullying a ‘habit’ reflects a widespread understanding that troika repeatedly used its power to impose its programmes on indebted states. In the case of Cyprus, the understood implicit threat concerned the ECB’s withdrawal of liquidity support to Cypriot banks, which would lead the banks into disorderly bankruptcy and the country out of the EMU: If Cyprus’s latest scheme to merit a €10bn bailout does not pass muster, the ECB will be under pressure to come good on its threat to order a halt to liquidity aid to Cyprus’s banks on Monday, bringing the island’s financial sector to its knees, leaving the country insolvent, and probably heading for the euro door marked way out after only five years in the currency. (The Guardian, 24 March 2013)

The implied inability of Cyprus and Cypriot actors to resist an obvious bluff added to their construction as weak and willing sub-servants of the troika. The two news outlets shared critical positions vis-à-vis Cypriot politicians, and some accused the Cypriot president of being the initiator of the haircut: ‘For fear of driving Russian investors away with an excessive levy on the wealthiest, the Cypriot government opted to tax all depositors – pensioners, the unemployed, students, rich and poor. This despite President Nicos Anastasiades explicitly promising in his election campaign only a month ago that depositors would be protected’ (Persson 2013). The accusation that Anastasiades suggested the haircut to protect Russian investors from a much bigger haircut appeared in a number of Telegraph commentaries. This accusation constructed the president as simultaneously a victim of symbolic power (exercised by the troika) and the executor of symbolic power over his people. It reflected a general understanding that Cyprus’s weak position left it few or no alternatives to the troika programme. Similarly, the commentary stated that ‘Cypriots felt humiliated and subjugated’ as their president was intimidated into accepting a haircut (ibid.). Another commentary quoted German Chancellor Merkel’s statement that Cyprus ‘must realise its current business model is dead’ (Vasagar and Waterfield 2013), building the idea that Cyprus had no choice. Recurrent positions in both newspapers suggest that Cyprus’s attempts to seek alternative financial assistance in Russia represented efforts to switch from one ‘master’ to another: ‘One thing is for certain: the eurozone, an aspiring global player, is offering up a Mediterranean outpost of strategic significance as a present to the Russians. It is just up to Moscow to decide whether it will accept it’ (Chrysoloras 2013). In keeping with the general understanding that Cyprus was vulnerable, most commentaries explained whether Cyprus, which both newspapers described as a tiny island-state – ‘[t]oo small to matter’ (The Guardian, 24 . . . 255 . . .

Giulia Airaghi and Maria Avraamidou

March 2013) – was important to Europe. An article entitled ‘Cyprus: An Island Pawn in a Game of Geopolitical Chess’ used an analogy relevant to U.K. readers, noting that ‘Cyprus is as significant to the Eurozone as Southend-On-Sea is to the U.K. economy’ (Persson 2013). By comparing Cyprus to a small British area, the commentary ensured that readers would be able to conceptualize the ‘insignificance’ of Cyprus in terms of size, territory and economy.

The German Imperium Germany was presented as the leading actor within the EU, holding a hegemonic position in the handling of the Cypriot case and the whole EMU crisis. Even ‘neutral’ commentaries equated Germany with the ECB: ‘Pulling the plug is almost certain to spark an extremely chaotic outcome. That’s why the ECB – that is Germany – is highly unlikely to do it in my view’ (Halligan 2013). Most often, fierce criticism was addressed to Germany, representing German Chancellor Angela Merkel as the Eurozone’s ‘master’ or emperor intimidating the rest of the Eurozone states. One such article ran under the headline ‘Southern Europe Lies Prostrate before the German Imperium’ (Moore 2013); another spoke of ‘German-led flesh-eaters’: ‘Europe’s flesheaters are back. The claim that the worst of the eurozone crisis is behind us now looks foolish. The deal forced on Cyprus by the German-led troika at the weekend isn’t a bailout’ (Milne 2013). This emphasis on Germany overshadowed the particular role played by the IMF and then the ECB. A commentary noted: ‘The IMF’s Christine Lagarde has given her blessing to the troika deal, claiming that the package will restore Cyprus to full health, with public debt below 100pc of GDP by 2020’ (Evans-Pritchard 2013). The quote is evidence of a recurrent understanding that IMF only conceded to the plan as a secondary player. As for the ECB, The Guardian noted that it tended to align with Germany and gave the example of the haircut of the Greek debt in 2010: ‘That triggered a long fight between Berlin and Frankfurt, the German government and the ECB. As usual, Merkel prevailed, though privately she has conceded it was a mistake not to be repeated’ (The Guardian, 24 March 2013). The conspicuous absence or understatement of the IMF and ECB appears to be a strategy in its own right to build a consensus about the symbolic conflict by shifting the attention from powerful economic institutions to Germany in an attempt to show that the turmoil was caused by wrong political decisions and not by structural inefficiencies of the capitalist system. . . . 256 . . .

Pax Troikana

Supporting and Naturalizing Capitalism The harsh critique against Germany and the troika went hand in hand with severe criticism emerging from the understanding that the haircut of deposits breached core capitalist principles, namely the right to property and trust in the markets. ‘Monetary union has become a danger to property’ (Evans-Pritchard 2013), argued a Telegraph commentary. A Guardian one spoke of a ‘theft by the government’ and a ‘bank robbery’ (Chakrabortty 2013). In this context, the ‘rescue’ programme had crossed capitalism’s ‘line’, as it undermined ‘the financial and legal fabric of capitalism itself’ (Halligan 2013). The debate returns repeatedly to the haircut’s violation of capitalism’s core principles: ‘In Brussels, meanwhile, the people managing the world’s second largest economy showed once again a ridiculous lack of leadership. … [T]hey concluded and defended a deal that would violate the sanctity of retail deposits’ (Chrysoloras 2013). Another commentary in The Telegraph noted that ‘[m]arketled solutions are always likely to be socially more acceptable than ones imposed by centralised, political diktat’ (Warner 2013). The use of the word diktat suggests a widespread understanding that a hegemonic foreign power imposed a painful political decision on Cyprus. Evidently, the idea is that a market solution should prevail, even if it imposes greater pain on people as it is more socially accepted. By extension, the haircut decision violated the neoliberal idea that a centralized authority – in this case a supra-state authority – should interfere as minimally as possible, never violating private rights to property, and only to the extent necessary to safeguard those rights (Harvey 2005: 2). At the same time, other provisions of the Cyprus-troika deal, such as austerity and privatizations, remained either completely unexplored or received only minor attention. One commentary noted that ‘[a]usterity beyond the therapeutic dose is self-defeating’, but made no inquiry into what constituted a therapeutic dose (Evans-Pritchard 2013). Such neglect reflects the normalization of austerity as a means to confront a financial or economic crisis, contrasted to a haircut of deposits. Meanwhile privatizations remained out of the scope of criticism. The idea put forward is that even within capitalism, policies ‘from above’ cannot be over-exploitative, as they risk harming capitalism. Both newspapers frequently ran commentaries arguing that the construction of the Eurozone or the irresponsible actions of Cypriot actors, or both, led to the country’s economic crisis. A Guardian commentary implicating the wrongdoings of the Cypriot banking sector offers an example: . . . 257 . . .

Giulia Airaghi and Maria Avraamidou

‘A “casino economy”, said the French government. “A dysfunctional business model”, said the Germans of the Cypriot economy. With a banking sector seven times Cypriot gross domestic product, Lagarde insisted this was unsustainable and that it would be more than halved to around three times GDP by 2018’ (Traynor 2013). A Telegraph commentary that implicated the Eurozone stated: ‘If anyone is responsible for the bloated size of the Cypriot banking system, it is not the Cypriots, who were only pursuing a market opportunity, but the architects of the single currency’ (Warner 2013). Neither commentary exposes the capitalist system to any scrutiny. Policies and their outcomes are evaluated in terms of their sustainability or success within the market economy. Thus, it is Cyprus or the Eurozone that is to blame for failing to adhere to the capitalist rules of the game, while the banking system’s actions are only natural within financial capitalism. Some commentaries specified that within the over-regulated Eurozone, markets could not solve emerging crises and that the EMU precluded devaluation and inflation as solutions. On the other hand, justifications of pro–bail-in positions were also offered, on the grounds that the banking system should be better regulated (Kapoor 2013). Another commentary argued that the haircut represented a ‘wealth tax’ because it taxed depositors and not the general public (Inman 2013). In none of these cases was the need to safeguard the smooth functioning of the capitalist system questioned.

The U.K.: The Insider/Outsider Across both newspapers, commentators described the U.K. as absent from the events that created the Cypriot ‘rescue’ programme (and also the crisis). They described Whitehall (the British government) as a concerned ‘outside’ actor but also simultaneously as an ‘inside’ actor because of the likely impact of the haircut and general EMU mismanagement of the crisis on its economy. One commentary noted that the U.K. was ‘rightly held aloof’, yet clarified that Whitehall had urged ‘the Eurozone to deepen and strengthen itself’ (Moore 2013), though without effect. British expatriates permanently residing in Cyprus were depicted as victims of the haircut, as they also had deposits in Cypriot banks: ‘Those Britons who have built their lives on the island will feel especially aggrieved by their hard-earned funds being depleted seemingly on the whim of the government in Berlin’ (The Telegraph, 18 March 2015). . . . 258 . . .

Pax Troikana

Commentaries also compared the experiences of Cyprus and the U.K. in the economic crisis. On the one hand they noted that both countries had over-expanded banking sectors and both took ‘draconian action at huge public expense’ to mitigate the effects of the 2008 economic crisis (Bootle 2013). On the other hand, they claimed that the Cypriot banking sector resembled Britain’s but far exceeded it, as in the comment ‘Cyprus was Britain on steroids’ (The Telegraph, 21 March 2013). The U.K. saved the Northern Rock and Royal Bank of Scotland banks from the brink of collapse by nationalizing them; like Cyprus, it had experienced a bank run. Thus commentaries brought the controversial issue of bank nationalization to the debate. The Labour government was accused of returning to ‘old’ habits ‘of high taxes, high debts, and nationalizations’ (Kickert 2012) – a criticism of state interventions in the market. The analysis also noted a recurrent emphasis on how the U.K., unlike Cyprus, enjoyed monetary sovereignty – implying that this protected the country from a Cyprus-like scenario: ‘The difference, of course, is that Britain has control of its currency, and can soften (or conceal) the impact of its policies. Cyprus has no such luck. Its only option is bailout and austerity indeed, the haircut on savers may be the lesser of two evils’ (The Telegraph, 18 March 2013). This comment attributed inability to effectively respond to the crisis to Cyprus, contrasting it with the U.K.’s ability to ‘soften’ its policies during periods of crisis by exercising control over its currency. Similarly, another commentary stated: Most importantly, perhaps, Cyprus is part of the eurozone and so does not have access to the monetary levers which the U.K. does. Recently both Paul Krugman and Martin Wolf have thoroughly demolished the idea that the U.K. enjoys low interest rates because of its policy of austerity and have identified precisely that being in charge of those levers is the key to market confidence. (Andreou 2013)

Such positions confirmed the U.K.’s policy on sovereignty and reaffirmed Euroscepticism by validating prominent ideas that the U.K.’s choice not to join the EMU was correct.

Consequences of the ‘Rescue’ Programme, for Cyprus and Europe A number of commentators argued that the Cypriot ‘bailout’ did not serve the purpose of ‘saving’ Cyprus but rather destroyed the country’s servicebased economy with its unprecedented social impact. The main position . . . 259 . . .

Giulia Airaghi and Maria Avraamidou

expressed was that current investors would eventually move their money out of Cyprus, while in the long term the regulations imposed by the troika would destroy Cyprus as a financial centre. Unemployment would rise significantly as the country’s real economy diminished, and Cyprus would soon join Greece as a state hardest hit by the crisis: ‘And the troika’s imposition of austerity will probably sink the island into a Greek-style depression. … The introduction of capital controls may be an essential precaution for Nicosia, but it will surely be seen by international investors as a threatening precedent in an economic bloc, one of whose main purposes is the free flow of capital’ (The Guardian, 24 March 2013). As the consequences spread from the economy to society at large, concurrent commentaries predicted chaos, civil unrest and the country’s euro-exit ‘on a wave of public disgust’ (Halligan 2013). Both newspapers argued that the decision would affect the weak social classes in Cyprus, and not just the big depositors. A commentary in The Guardian, for example, emphasized that the haircut was ‘morally offensive’ because it victimized equally small depositors, whose savings Cypriot banks held, and ‘oligarchs’ (Lapavitsas 2013). Overall, opinions tended to represent poor people as cushioning the blow to the rich ones: most commentators described Cypriots as small depositors scrimping to save for a rainy day – that is, as victims of high-level decisions. Another recurrent argument was that even though the Eurogroup actors justified their proposed shock therapy as countering Cyprus’s alleged money-laundering activities and inappropriate provision of a tax-haven to Russian oligarchs, in the end the programme protected Russian depositors more than any other depositors. The Guardian (Elder 2013) published an interview with Russian tycoon Alexander Lebedev arguing that Russian capital had departed the island by the time the decisions were made, and that claims that the haircut would affect ‘Russian oligarchs’ were false. The haircut was also described as a means of destroying Cyprus’s economic model, so as to leave the country with no alternative other than a painful restructuring tailored to match German visions for a stronger Eurozone: ‘As we have seen since the sovereign debt crisis began, the Euroclub has bullied its poorer members into swallowing poisonous austerity and social repressiveness in order to keep a bust system on the road’ (Chakrabortty 2013). Commentaries in both newspapers warned that capital controls and the bail-in provisions would trigger catastrophic micro and macro effects beyond Cyprus, impacting on the entire Eurozone. One such commen-

. . . 260 . . .

Pax Troikana

tary claimed: ‘Europe has found a new way to shoot itself in the foot’ (Armitstead 2013). It predicted that in weak Eurozone states, the consensus about the troika’s programmes would eventually break down, with unprecedented consequences. Others emphasized the risk of bank runs in other EMU member states with weak economies: ‘What is beyond dispute is that a precedent has been created in the EMU and depositors in peripheral countries with weak banks will take note. Bank runs can run for several days and panic can spread’ (Lapavitsas 2013). The analysis also noted that the decision was aimed at creating a significant sovereign debt in the medium-long term, which would leave Cyprus in a permanent situation of ‘crisis’, binding it to the troika’s economic aid. This argument resembles another recurrent claim: that troika programmes cement the structural divisions between the wealthy northern and economically dependent southern states of the EU. This critique was addressed primarily at Germany, for refraining from rebalancing its own economy even as it imposed economic measures on other EMU countries and thus reinforced divisions between Europe’s rich north and poor south. Another argument seen in many commentaries was that weak states in the EU south were trapped in the EMU and, more importantly perhaps, in German ‘imaginings’ of an economically competitive ‘Euroland’. Both newspapers used arguments contending that the troika’s programmes were aimed at pushing weaker countries out of the EU in order to create an area of economic growth led by Germany: ‘A Cypriot eurozone exit would then be a starting point for a new eurozone made up of solvent, northernEuropean nations only, something that the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, is under mounting domestic pressure to back’ (Freeman 2013). In this context, breaking up the EMU is not a threat but the political and economic purpose of Germany, as the break-up would ensure a competitive euro.

Conclusion The analysis of two British newspapers revealed representations of the symbolic conflict between the troika and Cyprus that supported the hegemony of capitalism while critiquing the troika’s and especially Germany’s hegemonic practices. Commentaries mainly achieved this through harsh criticism of a constructed German-inspired Cypriot ‘rescue’ programme and especially of the initial idea of imposing the haircut on insured deposits, represented as the apogee of German mishandling of the EMU financial

. . . 261 . . .

Giulia Airaghi and Maria Avraamidou

crisis. The naturalization of capitalism was achieved through recurrent positions that shifted attention away from an economic system producing inequalities, and towards the troika’s handling of the crisis and Germany’s role in it. Although the commentaries failed to explicitly question the mechanism of debt as such, they criticized the way the EMU provided aid, arguing that it ensured weaker member states’ subjugation to German power. Furthermore, they accorded scant attention to troika institutions – the IMF, the ECB, the EU – dismissing them all as German-dominated. This contributed to a continual lack of attention to how markets work and how they influence politics, thus reproducing the hegemony of neoliberal capitalism. Simultaneously, attacks on Germany and the EMU provided justification of pre-existing positions that viewed the U.K.’s decision not to join the EMU as wise, reinforcing Euroscepticism. Indirectly, these arguments justified the insider/outsider status of the U.K. within the EU. All in all, the contestation of Germany can be seen as a strategy adopted by British media to build consensus over what was, at the time of research, the hegemonic British political setting. Although the analysed media often recognized the symbolic violence against Cyprus, portraying the troika’s programme as a means of subordinating the country and creating a potential state of permanent crisis (i.e. long-lasting debt and dependency on lenders), they simultaneously reproduced it by stressing money-laundering activity in Cyprus. The criticism focused on the harsh consequences the lower strata would suffer did not highlight the brutality of capitalism; rather, it emphasized Germany’s management and sometimes contrasted it with Whitehall’s superior management. The analysis revealed how the reaction to Germany’s hegemony simultaneously supported certain British hegemonic political configurations like monetary sovereignty. This qualitative approach to the media coverage of the Cypriot haircut is useful for showing how the contestation of the troika’s decisions and especially of Germany, which could be seen as a counterhegemonic representation being offered by both newspapers, is in practice a hegemonic one, as the questioning of one hegemony tends to simultaneously serve another.

DR GIULIA AIRAGHI is an independent researcher. She received her co-joint PhD in sociology and methodology of social research from the Department of Sociology, Università Cattolica of Milan, and in media communication from the Faculty of Human Science, Vrije Universiteit Brussel. Her research has developed in the field of sociology of conflict and economic . . . 262 . . .

Pax Troikana

sociology. She has taught sociology of cultural processes and sociology of communication in different Italian universities. DR MARIA AVRAAMIDOU is an adjunct lecturer at the Department of Social and Political Sciences, University of Cyprus (UCY) and at the Department of Communication and Internet Studies, Cyprus University of Technology (CUT). She is also a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Psychology, UCY, conducting research on media representations of migrant communities and media analysis of interethnic negotiations for the reunification of Cyprus. She received her PhD from the Department of Communication and Internet Studies, CUT. She combines an interdisciplinary educational background in law, journalism and communications. Her work has been published in international journals and presented at international conferences.

Notes 1.

2. 3.

4. 5. 6.

7.

8.

9.

This chapter will use Cyprus to refer to the Republic of Cyprus (RoC). Cyprus is ethnically divided in two territorial zones: the north, controlled by the unrecognized Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC); and the south, controlled by the RoC. Their economies are also separated. The state had rescued Laiki Bank for €1.8bn in June 2012, becoming its major (84 per cent) stakeholder. Due to the prolonged bank closure, by the time the deal was signed the bailout amount had skyrocketed from €17bn to an estimated €20.6–€23bn or 20.1–33.5 per cent of the Cypriot GDP (Apostolides 2013). Costas Constantinou (@ CostasAstra), ‘Wilkommen in Pax Troikanam’. 2 April 2013, 21:53. Cyprus became a formal colony in 1925. It was still controlled by the U.K. from 1878. Conflict theory is a set of critical sociological approaches that criticize the sociopolitical system by pointing to social, political, or material inequality (see e.g. Simmel 2009; Bourdieu 1994; Gramsci 1975; Marx 1867–1894). According to Bourdieu and Wacquant (1992: 168), through ‘misrecognition’, an actor recognizes violence, without perceiving it as such, while recognition refers to the act of taking the world for granted (ibid.: 272). Noticeably, the EU Parliament (resolution 2013/2277[INI]) criticized the way Eurogroup, an unofficial EU body, imposes its decisions on ECOFIN and subsequently on the entire EU. Formed in 1983, this round table was an initiative of certain powerful EU multinational companies (Volvo, Philips, Fiat) supported by core members of what was then the European Community. Their aim was to plant the seeds for true European economic cooperation, which would allow the eventual creation of a single, highly competitive market (http://www.ert.eu/about-us). . . . 263 . . .

Giulia Airaghi and Maria Avraamidou

References Andreou, A. 2013. ‘Cyprus’s Problems Bear No Relation to Austerity in the UK’, The Guardian, 20 March. Retrieved 17 February 2015 from https://www.theguardian.com/ commentisfree/2013/mar/20/cyprus-problems-austerity-uk. Apostolides, A. 2013. ‘Beware of German Gifts Near Elections: How Cyprus Got Here and Why It Is Currently More out than in the Eurozone’, Capital Markets Law Journal 8(3): 300–18. Armitstead, L. 2013. ‘Cyprus Investors Slam ‘Crazy’ Bailout’, The Telegraph, 18 March. Retrieved 17 February 2015 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/financialcrisis/9938858/ Cyprus-investors-slam-crazy-bailout.html. Artis, M.J. 2006. ‘Economic Theory as a Decision Tool: OCA Theory, the UK and the Euro’, Current Politics and Economics of Europe 17(1): 53–70. Berry, M. 2016. ‘The UK Press and the Deficit Debate’, Sociology 50(3): 542–59. Bickes, H., T. Otten and L.C. Weymann. 2014. ‘The Financial Crisis in the German and English Press: Metaphorical Structures in the Media Coverage on Greece, Spain and Italy’, Discourse & Society 25(4): 424–45. Bootle, R. 2013. ‘Cyprus Crisis is at the Heart of Fundamental Problems in the Eurozone’, The Telegraph, 24 March. Retrieved 17 February 2015 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ finance/comment/rogerbootle/9951487/Cyprus-crisis-is-at-the-heart-of-fundamentalproblems-in-the-eurozone.html. Boyer, R. 2000. ‘The Unanticipated Fallout of European Monetary Union: The Political and Institutional Deficits of the Euro’, in C. Crouch (ed.), After the Euro. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 39–103. ———. 2013. ‘The Present Crisis: A Trump for a Renewed Political Economy’, Review of Political Economy 25(1): 1–38. Bourdieu, P. 1994. Raisons Pratiques sur la Theorie de l’ Action. Paris: Seuil. Bourdieu, P., and L.J. Wacquant. 1992. An Invitation to Reflexive Sociology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Braun, V., and B. Clarke. 2006. ‘Using Thematic Analysis in Psychology’, Qualitative Research in Psychology 3(2): 77–101. Breeze, R. 2014. ‘Perspectives on North and South: The 2012 Financial Crisis in Spain Seen through Two Major British Newspapers’, Discourse & Communication 8: 241–59. Bulmer, S. 2008. ‘New Labour, New European Policy? Blair, Brown and Utilitarian Supernationalism’, Parliamentary Affairs 61(4): 597–620. Carragee, K.M. 1993. ‘A Critical Evaluation of Debates Examining the Media Hegemony Thesis’, Western Journal of Communication 57(3): 330–48. Central Bank of Cyprus. 2013. ‘Cyprus Financial Assistance Programme – Memoranda Signed with the EU and the International Monetary Fund: Q&A regarding the Financial Sector.’ Retrieved 15 November 2015 from http://www.centralbank.gov.cy/media/2013-08-13_ qa_english_comments.pdf. Chakrabortty, A. 2013. ‘The Cyprus Eurozone Bailout Conditions Are Bank Robbery Pure and Simple’, The Guardian, 18 March. Retrieved 28 January 2015 from https://www .theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/18/cyprus-savings-raid-bank-robbery. Chrysoloras, N. 2013. Why We Should Be Cautious About Cheering on Cyprus’s No Vote’, The Guardian, 20 March. Retrieved 15 March 2015 from https://www.theguardian.com/ commentisfree/2013/mar/20/cautious-cheering-on-cyprus-no-vote. Cox, R.W. 1983. ‘Gramsci and International Relations: An Essay in Method’, Millennium – Journal of International Studies 12(2): 162–75. Croteau, D., W. Hoynes and S. Milan. 2011. Media/Society: Industries, Images, and Audiences. Los Angeles: Sage.

. . . 264 . . .

Pax Troikana ‘David Cameron’s EU Speech – Full Text’. 2013. The Guardian, 23 January. Retrieved 15 November 2015 from http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2013/jan/23/david-cameroneu-speech-referendum. Demetriou, O. 2013. ‘A Cultural Reading of the Cyprus Crisis’, Open Democracy, 15 April. Retrieved 5 May 2014 from https://www.opendemocracy.net/olga-demetriou/culturalreading-of-cyprus-crisis. Doudaki, V. 2015. ‘Legitimation Mechanisms in the Bailout Discourse’, Javnost – The Public 22(1): 1–17. Durand, C., and R. Keucheyan. 2015. ‘Financial Hegemony and the Unachieved European State’, Competition & Change 19(2): 129–44. Elder, M. 2013. ‘Alexander Lebedev Set to Lose $10,000 in Raid on Cyprus Bank Deposits’, The Guardian, 25 March. Retrieved 3 April 2015 from https://www.theguardian.com/ business/2013/mar/25/alexander-lebedev-lose-money-cyprus-banks. Evans-Pritchard, A. 2013. ‘Cyprus Has Finally Killed Myth That EMU is Benign’, The Telegraph, 27 March. Retrieved 27 February 2015 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/ comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/9957999/Cyprus-has-finally-killed-myth-that-EMUis-benign.html. Freeman, C. 2013. ‘Cyprus Dreams Left in Tatters’, The Telegraph, 24 March. Retrieved 11 March 2015 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/cyprus/99498 58/Cyprus-dreams-left-in-tatters.html. French, S., A. Leyshon and N. Thrift. 2009. ‘A Very Geographical Crisis: The Making and Breaking of the 2007–2008 Financial Crisis’, Cambridge Journal of Regions, Economy and Society 2(2): 287–302. Gifford, C. 2010. ‘The UK and the European Union: Dimensions of Sovereignty and the Problem of Eurosceptic Britishness’, Parliamentary Affairs 63(2): 321–38. Graeber, D. 2014. Debt – Updated and Expanded: The First 5,000 Years. London, New York: Melville House. Gramsci, A. 1975. Prison Notebooks. New York: International Publishers. Hall, S. 1982. ‘The Rediscovery of Ideology: Return of the Repressed in Media Studies’, in J. Storey (ed.), Cultural Theory and Popular Culture: A Reader. Essex: Pearson Education, pp. 111–41. Hall, S., et al. (eds). 1978. Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State and Law and Order. London, Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Halligan, L. 2013. ‘Will Cyprus Be the Pin to Burst Euro Balloon?’, The Telegraph, 23 March. Retrieved 11 March 2015 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/liamhalli gan/9950237/Will-Cyprus-be-the-pin-to-burst-euro-balloon.html. Harvey, D. 2005. A Brief History of Neoliberalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hudson, D., and M. Martin. 2010. ‘Narratives of Neoliberalism: The Role of Everyday Media Practices and the Reproduction of Dominant Ideas’, in A. Gofas and C. Hay (eds), The Role of Ideas in Political Analysis: A Portrait of Contemporary Debates. London: Routledge, pp. 97–117. Inman, P. 2013. ‘Cyprus’s Wealth Tax Makes Perfect Sense – Its Rich Won’t Escape Unscathed’, The Guardian, 18 march. Retrieved 28 January 2015 from https://www.theguardian.com/ commentisfree/2013/mar/18/cyprus-wealth-tax-good-thing. Kapoor, S. 2013. ‘The Cyprus Bailout isn’t all Bad: Here are Four Silver Linings’, The Guardian, 26 March. Retrieved 28 January 2015 from https://www.theguardian.com/ commentisfree/2013/mar/26/cyprus-bailout-eurozone. Kickert, W. 2012. ‘How the UK Government Responded to the Fiscal Crisis: An Outsider’s View’, Public Money & Management 32(3): 169–76. Kutter, A. 2014. ‘A Catalytic Moment: The Greek Crisis in the German Financial Press’, Discourse & Society 25(4): 446–66. Laclau, E., and C. Mouffe. 2001. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London and New York: Verso.

. . . 265 . . .

Giulia Airaghi and Maria Avraamidou Lampropoulou, S. 2014. ‘“Greece Will Decide the Future of Europe”: The Recontextualisation of the Greek National Elections in a British Broadsheet Newspaper’, Discourse & Society 25(4): 467–82. Lapavitsas, C. 2013. ‘Cyprus’s Dramatic Choice’, The Guardian, 19 March. Retrieved 28 January 2015 from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/19/cyprus-troi ka-plan. Marx, K. 1867–94. Das Kapital: Kritik der politischen Oekonomie. Hamburg: Otto Meissner. Milne, S. 2013. ‘Europe’s Flesheaters Now Threaten to Devour Us All’, The Guardian, 26 March. Retrieved 15 March 2015 from https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/mar/ 26/europes-flesheaters-threaten-to-devour-all. Moore, C. 2013. ‘Southern Europe Lies Prostrate Before the German Imperium’, The Telegraph, 22 March. Retrieved 15 March 2015 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ europe/cyprus/9948545/Southern-Europe-lies-prostrate-before-the-German-imperium .html. Morton, A.D. 2003. ‘Social Forces in the Struggle Over Hegemony: Neo-Gramscian Perspectives in International Political Economy’, Rethinking Marxism 15(2): 153–79. Mouffe, C. (ed.). 1979. Gramsci and Marxist Theory. London: Routledge and Kegan Paul. Mylonas, Y. 2012. ‘Media and the Economic Crisis of the EU: The “Culturalization” of a Systemic Crisis and Bild-Zeitung’s Framing of Greece’, tripleC 10(2): 646–71. Oliver, T. 2015. ‘To Be or Not To Be in Europe: Is That the Question? Britain’s European Question and An In/Out Referendum’, International Affairs 91(1): 77–91. Quaglia, L. 2009. ‘The “British Plan” as a Pace-Setter: The Europeanization of Banking Rescue Plans in the EU?’ Journal of Common Market Studies 47(5): 1063–83. Persson, M. 2013. ‘Cyprus: An Island Pawn in a Game of Geopolitical Chess’, The Telegraph, 24 March. Retrieved 28 January 2015 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/ europe/cyprus/9949860/Cyprus-an-island-pawn-in-a-game-of-geopolitical-chess.html. Republic of Cyprus Statistical Service. 2011. Census of Population 2011. Retrieved 9 October 2014 from http://www.mof.gov.cy/mof/cystat/statistics.nsf/populationcondition_22ma in_en/populationcondition_22main_en?OpenForm&sub=2&sel=2. Simmel, G. 2009. Sociology: Inquiries into the Construction of Social Forms. Leiden and Boston: Brill. Smith, J. 2005. ‘A Missed Opportunity? New Labour’s European Policy 1997–2005’, International Affairs 81(4): 703–21. Sparks, C. 1987. ‘The Readership of the British Quality Press’, Media, Culture & Society 9(4): 427–55. Stockhammer, E. 2008. ‘Some Stylized Facts on the Finance-Dominated Accumulation Regime’, Competition & Change 12(2): 189–207. ———. 2013. ‘The Euro Crisis and Contradictions of Neoliberalism in Europe’, Economic Discussion Papers 2: 1–21. Thompson, P.A. 2013. ‘Invested Interests? Reflexivity, Representation and Reporting in Financial Markets’, Journalism 14(2): 208–27. Touri, M., and S.L. Rogers. 2013. ‘Europe’s Communication Deficit and the UK Press: Framing the Greek Financial Crisis’, Journal of Contemporary European Studies 21(2): 175–89. Tracy, J.F. 2012. ‘Covering “Financial Terrorism”: The Greek Debt Crisis in US News Media’, Journalism Practice 6(4): 513–29. Traynor, I. 2013. ‘Cyprus’s Banks Have Been Tamed – Are Malta and Luxembourg Next?’, The Guardian, 25 March. Retrieved 15 March from https://www.theguardian.com/ business/2013/mar/25/cyprus-banks-malta-luxembourg. Trimikliniotis, N. 2013. ‘The Cyprus Eurocrisis: The Beginning of the End of the Eurozone?’ Open Democracy, 25 March. Retrieved 15 November 2015 from https://www.opendem ocracy.net/nicos-trimiklinioti/cyprus-eurocrisis-beginning-of-end-of-eurozone. Van Apeldoorn, B. 2013. ‘The European Capitalist Class and the Crisis of Its Hegemonic Project’, Socialist Register 50: 189–206.

. . . 266 . . .

Pax Troikana Vasagar, J., and B. Waterfield. 2013. ‘Merkel Flirts With Euro Ruin’, The Telegraph, 23 March. Retrieved 11 March 2015 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/9950089/Merkelflirts-with-euro-ruin.html. Warner, J. 2013. ‘Cypriot Savers Have it Cushy. We’ve Had Worse Haircuts in Britain’, The Telegraph, 18 March. Retrieved 17 February 2015 from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/ finance/comment/jeremy-warner/9938659/Cypriot-savers-have-it-cushy.-Weve-hadworse-haircuts-in-Britain.html. Wellings, B. 2010. ‘English Nationalism and Euroscepticism: Losing the Peace’, Nations and Nationalism 16(3): 488–505. Williams, R. 1977. Marxism and Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

. . . 267 . . .

H

Chapter 12

EGEMONIC AND COUNTER-HEGEMONIC

DISCOURSES OF THE CYPRIOT ECONOMIC CRISIS BY GREEK MEDIA Yiannis Mylonas

Introduction This study examines the ways in which the economic crisis in Cyprus1 was covered by mainstream Greek media affiliated to competing ([neo]liberal vs. left) ideological positions. Cyprus is a country with strong historical, geographic, social, cultural, economic and political ties to Greece. Greek politicians, media and citizens follow major events concerning Cyprus with great interest. Further, Greece’s own crisis triggered additional interest in the Cypriot crisis, as both countries agreed to ‘bailout’ agreements with the ‘troika’ (an institution composed of the European Central Bank [ECB], International Monetary Fund [IMF] and European Commission) in exchange for severe austerity reforms. Thus Cyprus can serve as an example to follow or to avoid, for any attempted policy of economic recovery. The analytical distinction between a left and a ‘liberal’ camp of media discourses adopted in this study serves the objective of foregrounding the main ideologico-political divisions and struggles taking place in Greece, Europe’s ‘crisis epicentre’, during the time the study refers to. Despite liberalism’s potential openness to both the left and the right political spectrums (Crouch 2011: 3), liberalism nowadays is connected to the neoliberal political paradigm (Dardot and Laval 2013), and as the case of Greece shows, to broader conservative demands related to the political right. Today’s left political perspective then should be understood as a broader framework of discourses and practices challenging neoliberalism and capitalism as such

Greek Media Discourses of the Cypriot Crisis

(along with more traditional ideas of conservatism relating to nationalism, public order and patriarchy), in a quest for a new participatory, democratic and socialist model to organize social, economic, cultural and political life (Harvey 2014: 294). The study offers an analysis of relevant articles published on four popular news websites: capital.gr, kathimerini.gr, avgi.gr and tvxs.gr. The study analysed news and opinion articles published at times of different events marking the Cypriot economic crisis. These moments belong to the period stretching from the 11 July 2011 accident at Evangelos Florakis naval base, to 20 September 2015, the date of the last (up to now, 2017) Greek national elections. These dates cover the development of the economic crises in Cyprus and in Greece, and provide an opportunity to study the Cypriot crisis media coverage in relation to important crisis-related events occurring in Greece. The ‘official’ commencement of the Cypriot economic crisis, as far as international financial institutions, the media and politicians are concerned, was in the summer of 2011, after an accidental explosion of ammunition at a naval base accident in Mari severely damaged the country’s main power station (Mullen 2013). Besides its human consequences (including thirteen fatalities), this accident had important economic effects in both the ‘real economy’ and the financial one, causing straining to the so-called global financial markets and triggering political debate in Cyprus and elsewhere over the efficiency of the AKEL (Ανορθωτικό Κόμμα Εργαζόμενου Λαού, Progressive Party of Working People) party’s left-wing government in Cyprus at the time. On September 2011, all major credit rating agencies downgraded the Cypriot economy, an act that was repeated in the spring of 2012. As a result, Cyprus could not borrow funds at low interest rates. In July 2012 the Cyprus government applied for aid via the European Support Mechanism (ESM). During the spring of 2013, Cyprus submitted to austerity reforms under the troika’s supervision in exchange for loans that could guarantee the servicing of the country’s sovereign debt (Doudaki et al. 2016: 5). The peak of the crisis concerns the so-called haircut of citizens’ savings in its two main banks, the Bank of Cyprus and Laiki Bank, which were exposed to default and at risk of insolvency and a ‘bank run’ (ibid.: 6). The agreement involved, in particular, the slashing of deposits above €100,000 at the Bank of Cyprus by 47.5 per cent, and the loss of all deposits above €100,000 for Laiki’s depositors. This study looks at the aforementioned media’s coverage of Cyprus during the period spanning from summer 2011 to autumn 2015. Starting in these years Greece underwent a persistent economic crisis that officially started in spring 2010 and is still ongoing, three ‘bailout’ agreements and . . . 269 . . .

Yiannis Mylonas

harsh austerity reforms that did not improve its economic situation. Following socialist and right-wing governments, a left-wing government led by the Syriza party was elected in Greece in January 2015 and re-elected that September as it attempted to challenge austerity regimes in the EU. During the period of study, the Greek media presented the Cypriot economic crisis to the Greek public as a historical example to learn from but also to avoid, that is, as a similar case of a crisis caused by a problematic, peripheral economy. According to the hegemonic, neoliberal narrative it was a success story of reform implementation, but according to the counter-hegemonic, left narrative, it was only another case of the EU’s neoliberal restructuring, and as such an inspiration for social and political resistance.

The Media Studied The media under study were mostly chosen because of their political orientations and the positions they held during the Greek crisis. Kathimerini. gr is the website of Kathimerini, Greece’s oldest daily newspaper, founded in 1919. Kathimerini has a liberal and conservative political orientation (Pleios 2013: 104). Kathimerini.gr’s high volume of traffic makes it the fifty-second most visited website in Greece (http://www.alexa.com/topsites/ countries;2/GR, accessed 9 November 2015). Kathimerini is owned by the Alafouzos group of companies, including the Skai group, which is a large Greek media group. Broadly affiliated to the right-wing New Democracy party, which led a coalition government at the peak moments of the Cypriot crisis in 2012 and 2013 (a number of the party’s members were also Kathimerini’s occasional contributors). Previous research (Mylonas 2014) showed that Kathimerini is a vocal advocate of the ‘structural reforms’ policies implemented in Greece. Capital.gr is the website of the weekly newspaper Kefalaio (Capital), founded in 2006. A political and economic medium, Capital.gr has a high number of visitors in the Greek cyberspace; it is the fifty-eighth most visited website in Greece (www.alexa.com/siteinfo/capital.gr, accessed 09 November 2015). The website offers news and expert opinions on the stock market in Greece and internationally, along with applied economics perspectives on economic and political life. Avgi.gr is the website of the newspaper Avgi. A leftist daily founded in 1952, Avgi is affiliated to the Syriza party and features the party’s main positions as well as articles written by party members and MPs. Avgi also publishes texts by other left-wing authors. The site has a rather low traffic . . . 270 . . .

Greek Media Discourses of the Cypriot Crisis

volume, ranking 394 among all visited websites in Greece (alexa.com, accessed 9 November 2015). Through its connections to other Syriza-affiliated websites, like www.rednotebook.gr and www.left.gr, Avgi.gr concentrates the mainstream left arguments in Greece and the mainstream left opposition to austerity regimes. Tvxs.gr is an online news website founded in 2008 by journalist Stelios Kouloglou, whose partnership with ERT, Greece’s public national broadcaster, had come to an end. With a relatively high level of visibility, being the 119th most visited website in Greece, Tvxs.gr is one of the most popular left-orientated websites in the country (http://www.alexa.com/topsites/ countries;4/GR, accessed 9 November 2015). Kouloglou is currently a Euro-parliament MP elected by Syriza. Often, Tvxs.gr reproduces articles coming from a variety of foreign and domestic media sources (of different political orientations). Kathimerini.gr takes a stance that is more ‘balanced’, objective and tied to journalistic norms and ideology than that of Capital.gr (Deuze 2005: 447). Likewise, Tvxs.gr offers a more general and ‘objective’ view of matters than Avgi.gr, which is a political party–orientated newspaper. Using the key words ‘Cyprus’ and ‘crisis’ as research terms, a corpus of several hundred relevant articles from each website2 was gathered within the period of study. In total, 109 articles – 55 from the ‘liberal’ and 54 from the left-wing media – were chosen for the analysis based on their relevance to the study.

Theoretical Background: A Discursive Approach to the Crisis, Its Effects and Its Politics This study follows critical research approaches, understanding the Eurozone crisis as part of the global economic crisis that started in the United States in 2008. Critical scholars emphasize the systemic character of the crisis and its foundations in the neoliberal restructuring of capitalism that begun in the 1970s in the West (Dardot and Laval 2013; Harvey 2014; Streeck 2016). The study focuses on a moment in the public construction and contestation of the Eurozone crisis (in its Cypriot case) and its possible resolution. The focus on the public construction of the crisis has to do with the importance of establishing public consensus about the crisis’ policy regimes, which presuppose particular understandings of what the crisis was and what should be done about it. To this end, key discourse theory (Laclau and Mouffe 1985) concepts are deployed to analyse the politics of the crisis: how different competing social agents attempted to define and . . . 271 . . .

Yiannis Mylonas

proposed to resolve the crisis (Carpentier 2011: 142). Despite different ontological approaches to the social, scholars argue in favour of developing bridges between discursive and materialist (such as the aforementioned political economy studies) social ontology paradigms by stressing not just their common politico-theoretical backgrounds and agendas, which are grounded in the social importance of critical analysis of contemporary social phenomena (such as globalized capitalism), but also the deepening of democracy, and the emphasis of those paradigms on social justice issues (Schou 2016: 298). An important effect of the crisis has been its destabilizing impact on sociopolitical life in the countries in crisis. From a discourse theoretical perspective, events of crisis like the current economic one challenge the established meanings that organize a given form of social order, unfolding the contingency of the social and the radical instability characterizing its constitution (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 98). The economic crisis dislocated the late capitalist discursive order, leaving important advocates of neoliberal capitalism unable to foresee the crisis or develop a language and an interpretative framework to understand it (Dahlberg 2014: 260). In any case, crisis is an inherent characteristic of capitalism (Harvey 2014: 4), which itself has dislocatory effects in social and political life that pave the way for the emergence of social antagonisms (Dahlberg 2014: 262). Social antagonisms, however, do not arise ‘naturally’ (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 124), but instead require discursive articulation, which problematizes and politicizes specific social entities and their stakes. The current economic crisis in its different forms (the U.S. credit crunch, the Eurozone crisis), like the worldwide rise of social movements challenging the established (neoliberal) hegemony of the social by politicizing the economy, is an indication of the current antagonistic possibilities within the late capitalist reality and its contradictions (Dahlberg 2014: 260). Here hegemony emerges as a key analytical concept for understanding the politico-ideological processes that produce and sustain established or emerging sociopolitical formations of a given reality. The discourse theoretical perspective regards hegemony as primarily a discursive process (Carpentier 2011: 162). Hegemony organizes the regimes of meaning that define the prevalent values of a given society and the ways in which its members make sense of the world, their social position and the main issues and challenges of their time. In that sense, hegemonic political interventions are those practices that attempt to frame the meaning of reality in preferred ways, with the people of a given society (the general public, or, the citizenry) identifying with them. . . . 272 . . .

Greek Media Discourses of the Cypriot Crisis

A ruptural moment (like an economic crisis) reveals the limits of meaning-making processes and the impossibility of their full constitution (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 125). It entails the possibility of unfolding the contingent framework of hegemony, and thus of recognizing the lack of (any) objective foundations in the meanings that produce and sustain a given social order (ibid.: 122). In the media studied, the presentation of the Cypriot crisis entails an effort to construct relevant meanings for the Greek publics. The economic crisis of Cyprus is articulated as equivalent to the Greek crisis. The Cypriot crisis thus becomes a discursive moment articulated by political agents striving for hegemony in the context of Greece’s crisis and the radical contingency of the social that the crisis unfolded. Political struggles, which are discursive struggles in national public spheres, attempt to fix the meanings of reality, the roots of its problems and their stakes. As Reinhart Koselleck (Koselleck and Richter 2006) argued in a study on the construction of the meaning of crisis in modernity, the discursive construction of a crisis entails expectations and imaginary projections for the future after the crisis resolution (Stråth and Wodak 2009: 20). Avgi.gr was Syriza’s key public communications medium and Tvxs.gr a highly opinionated medium affiliated to Syriza, so these media can be understood as caught within the broader hegemonic struggles in the Greek public sphere that connect to the anti-austerity, counter-hegemonic block. Simultaneously, the ‘liberal’ media studied – Kathimerini.gr and Capital.gr – have, like others of their kind, been supportive of the ‘no alternative to austerity’ hegemonic thesis expressed by EU officials (Mavroudeas 2014). Studied in this context, the events on Cyprus help to affirm the broader political narratives that construct a ‘public idiom’ (Hall et al. 1978: 61) of the crisis for the Greek public, seeking to produce factuality, explanations and predictions about the course of the crisis and the position of Greece itself within it.

Findings and Analysis The key ideas developed in the studied articles were coded under specific themes (Saldaña, 2009: 17) that summarize the common codes of the themes and logics repeated in the liberal and in the left media (see Tables 12.1 and 12.2). Table 12.1 demonstrates the ways that Cyprus and its crisis are represented in each category of media studied. Table 12.2 shows the ways that Greece is presented through the lens of the Cypriot crisis. The . . . 273 . . .

Yiannis Mylonas

Table 12.1. The Construction of Cyprus and Its Crisis Representing Cyprus Liberal media (Kathimerini.gr and Capital.gr)

Left media (Avgi.gr and Tvxs.gr) Theme: Problems/causes of the crisis

Theme: Problems/causes of the crisis

Theme: Solution to the crisis

Codes: • Non-productive economic system (tourism, consumer loans, banking services) • Consumerist excesses of the Cypriot people • Failure to implement proactive, efficient and timely reforms and (austerity) measures (by the Left government of AKEL) • Exposure to the Greek economy and the Greek crisis

Codes: Codes: • Weak link in • Unity of the European Cypriot people, capitalism public consensus on the (neoliberal) • Neoliberal restructuring of understanding the Eurozone due to of problems and the global capitalist solution crisis • Rationality • The EU core’s • Austerity reforms hostility towards • Competitive Russian and EU economy rivals’ bank • Privatizations deposits in Cyprus • Efficiency, innovation • Historical advantage of British colonialism • Historical wisdom of past suffering and calamities (1974 Turkish invasion) • Cyprus’ continued membership in the EU/Eurozone • Structural reforms in the EU/Eurozone, common banking system, etc.

Theme: Solution to the crisis Codes: • Political and social resistance in Cyprus, public protests • Greek/European/ International solidarity (political and social) • Creative economy, efficiency, innovation • Solution within the EU/Eurozone • Progressive (Keynesian) reform of the EU in favour of the European people and the real economy (instead of banks and oligopolies)

analysis of the articles followed a descriptive coding process, where common ideas and themes were summarized according to the codes listed in the boxes of each table (ibid.: 70). These codes were then organized according to specific themes corresponding to key ideas drawn from discourse theory. To use an example: None of these irresponsible ‘Patriots’ ever considered what a Cypriot government’s ‘no’ would mean for Cypriots. Nobody took into account Cyprus’s economic and geopolitical conditions. They thought that the ‘Moskovite’ would open up his huge embrace and accept them, something that did not occur. … Blinded by their so-called ‘anti-memorandum’ passion, they found a new inexpensive field for fiery, populist rhetoric. Responsible politicians . . . 274 . . .

Greek Media Discourses of the Cypriot Crisis

Table 12.2. The Construction of Greece through the Lens of Cyprus and Its Crisis Representing Greece through Cyprus (What can ‘we’ learn from the Cypriot crisis to solve our own crisis?) Liberal media (Kathimerini.gr and Capital.gr)

Left media (Avgi.gr and Tvxs.gr)

Theme: Similar identity features and problems

Theme: Political/cultural differences and Cyprus’ advantages

Theme: Similar identity features and potentials

Theme: Political features and Cyprus’ limitations

Codes: • People are responsible for the crisis and its resolution • Consumerist culture and laidback attitude • Left populist governments, inability to be proactive (with austerity reforms) • Unproductive and noncompetitive economy • Economic crisis as potential ‘mayhem’ • Continued membership in the Eurozone/ EU, seen as fundamental to a country’s progress (growth, modernization, development)

Codes: • ‘We’ are not doing enough to solve the crisis, but the Cypriots are • Greek people are split by populists/ irresponsible leaders (equation of left/far right) • Irrationality, conspiracy theories, sentimentalism • Greek people and their leaders who resist the austerity reforms are not realistic or mature • Cypriots are more hardworking, responsible and ready to sacrifice for the common good (as defined by neoliberal technocrats) • Greece is Ottoman-influenced (hence its institutions and culture are unmodern) whereas Cyprus is British-influenced (and thus has modern institutions and culture)

Codes: • Both countries are part of the Eurozone’s periphery • Both countries became laboratories of the EU’s neoliberal reforms • Common calamities (Turkish invasion of Cyprus, German occupation of Greece) • The devastating effects of the Greek Junta (1967–1974) in both countries • Equivalent resistance legacies (antifascist struggle in the 1940s in Greece, anticolonial struggle in the 1950s in Cyprus) • Working and middle classes bear the cost of austerity in both countries • The financialization of the economy hit both countries • Resistance politics and cultures formed in both countries can expand elsewhere too • Waging of common struggles in the EU for progressive, nonneoliberal EU reform • Remaining in the Eurozone/EU is key to both countries’ economic growth and social development

Codes: • Cyprus’ moderate success in implementing reforms in 2014 (reaching the fiscal goals of reforms) • Cypriot government and people gave up the antiausterity fight (2013) • Cypriot conservative government does not support the anti-austerity campaign launched by Greece’s progressive government (in the first half of 2015)

. . . 275 . . .

Yiannis Mylonas

however, should measure words and situations. Especially the leader of the main opposition party, who might come to power at some point and might be forced to sit at the same table with these North-European ‘gangsters’ as he called them, in a striking resemblance to the term ‘loan sharks’ systematically used by Golden Dawn. (‘Populism’s New Climax’, 24 March 2013, Kathimerini.gr).

The main codes identified in this excerpt are ‘populist leaders’ and ‘irresponsibility’. They are all part of a broader theme entitled ‘political and cultural differences’ and summon the statements and rationales expressed in the liberal media’s reporting on Greek responses to the Cypriot crisis and reflection on the differences between the two countries. In both tables, a key analytical category used to organize the codes in broader thematic frameworks is that of the ‘chain of equivalence’. These themes are part of broader political logics entailed in the explanations that different media offer for the Cypriot crisis. Laclau and Mouffe (1985: 130) developed the idea of ‘chains of equivalence and difference’ to discuss the ways that political discourses meant to construct social hegemony (by winning the people’s hearts and minds) produce alliances among different social agents in relation to their rival parties (Phelan and Dahlberg 2011: 19). Because chains of equivalence (temporarily) fix meaning in specific ways by establishing relations among different discursive elements (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 105), they are a central means of articulating political discourses (ibid.: 127). They allow for the formation of common identity fronts – potential political subjects brought together by a common understanding of shared problems, demands, solutions, and adversaries (Macgilchrist 2011: 21) – that express what ‘we’ (as a positive, political entity in the making) are not (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 128). The adversary marks the limit of our identity by prohibiting its full accomplishment, and is also constitutive of what we are, since all social entities are only conditionally constructed and subjected to historical processes of change. To return to the example above: it establishes a chain of adversarial/differential (with respect to the liberal, pro-European/reforms bloc) equivalence, blocking the completion of a pro-European and pro-reforms Greece, between politicians of the left and the extreme right (Golden Dawn), citizens opposed to austerity reforms, and Russia (‘the Moscovite’s aid’ as a populist fallacy). In this way a chain of equivalence brings together different semantic features, or as Laclau and Mouffe (1985: 113) termed them, ‘floating signifiers’ such as the themes developed by coding the data, which are denoted in specific ways according to the broader ideological frames of given discourses ([neo] liberal and left in this study). . . . 276 . . .

Greek Media Discourses of the Cypriot Crisis

These floating signifiers are semi-open, symbolic entities (e.g. a given word) that are often defined by ‘sedimented’ meanings, produced by powerful, politically orientated interventions, institutions, events or agents, and sustainable through time (e.g. the meanings defining the content of a given universal value), but also articulated into new, up-to-date definitions. The floating signifiers are signified and denoted into partially fixed moments of discourse through the process of discursive articulation. The outcome of articulation (i.e. the regulation and ordering of otherwise dispersed linguistic elements into coherent meanings) is discourse. To use another example, the signifier ‘Europe’, frequently encountered throughout the corpus of the articles studied, has different meanings in (neo)liberal and in left discourses: ‘Ironically, history decided that Greece and Cyprus will constitute the real-conditions’ laboratories to apply two basic neoliberal experiments of social engineering in Europe and its brief 21st century’ (N. Valavani, ‘Eurozone and Cyprus: The Second Experiment’, 31 March 2013, Avgi.gr). In another example: Europe is moving to the right direction. … [P]rogress is made towards establishing a common policy framework and a common control mechanism. The target now is a Eurogroup member states agreement on a framework for a European stability mechanism … that could be set in use in 2014. (‘Cyprus’ Debacle and a Common Banking System in the Eurozone’, 6 April 2013, Capital.gr).

‘Europe’, in Avgi.gr’s narrative, emerges as a risky entity where (extremist) neoliberal forces apply dangerous social experiments. Meanwhile, ‘Europe’ in Capital.gr emerges as a fast-moving force headed in the right direction of monetary policymaking that reflects the demands and aspirations of technocracy (Crouch 2004: 5).

The Liberal Media’s Discourse on the Cypriot and the Greek Crises The liberal media’s construction of the Cypriot crisis is connected to mainstream crisis explanations – already addressed by neoliberal economics – that emphasize national policy errors (while occasionally recognizing structural problems in the EMU [European Monetary Union]) and focus on fiscal issues without looking at deep systemic problems connected to the sphere of production (Mavroudeas and Paitaridis 2014: 9) and the ways globalized late capitalism affects it. Table 12.1 displays the codes describing the . . . 277 . . .

Yiannis Mylonas

reasons for the crisis. These explanations appeared when the Cypriot crisis was developing in 2012 and 2013, before the implementation of austerity reforms. All codes are derived from the non-systemic, mainstream analysis of the crisis that prioritizes the importance of fiscal problems (exposure to the Greek economy, financialization) and the lack of proactive policymaking in response to such ‘challenges’. Although the problematic nature of the production sphere of Cyprus (the ‘real economy’) connected to services (tourism, banking) is mentioned, it is merely attributed to a local inability to become competitive, suggesting a certain passivity (connected to consumerism), and narrow-mindedness (on the part of AKEL’s left government). Table 12.1 also shows the solutions proposed by the Greek liberal media, in line with mainstream crisis resolution rationales like those followed by the EU-IMF memoranda in the Eurozone’s periphery. These rationales stress that deep economic and structural reforms are needed to enable crisisstruck countries to pay the interest on their sovereign debt (Papadatos 2014: 68) and to further modernize in order to presumably become more competitive in the ‘global economy’. These codes form a chain of equivalence for the crisis resolution. The crisis will be resolved through the application of deep reforms (austerity-orientated measures; privatizations; higher taxes; savings, wage and welfare cuts), accompanied by broader EMU reforms and society’s consensus about them. Consensus can be based on the cultural and identity features of Cypriots, who are rational (due to both accumulated wisdom from historical calamities and a modern habitus produced by British colonialism) and are (fortunate to be) part of the EU and the Eurozone. From 2014 onwards, the (neo)liberal coverage of Cyprus begins to focus more on Greece’s own crisis-related affairs. Table 12.2 shows the codes denoting this relation; 2014 is the first year after the beginning of the reforms’ implementation in Cyprus. The resulting chain of discursive equivalence stresses the commonalities and differences between the countries while citing the proclaimed success of the Cypriot programme as an argument against liberals’ opponents, who stand accused of prolonging Greece’s crisis: ‘[T]he greatest fear is that our motherland may become a state in a permanent crisis. We entered the Memorandums’ system first and we are in threat of remaining there alone. With all fingers pointed at us’ (C. Hatzidakis, ‘Opinion: A Commission on How to Exit the Memorandum!’ Kathimerini, 5 April 2015). This excerpt comes from an article discussing Greece’s lack of progress in the reform process, as compared to Cyprus’s success. ‘We’ are responsible (for the crisis and the failure of the reforms) because we are not doing enough (even though we started the reform process first), . . . 278 . . .

Greek Media Discourses of the Cypriot Crisis

we are unrealistic and we are divided, as the author later explains. As such, ‘we’ may be isolated by ‘Europe’ and the (Western) world. The limits of the liberals’ discourse become clear when instrumentalization of the Cypriot positive example becomes paradigmatic to ‘our’ attainment of our missing fullness, which is a product of neoliberal social imaginaries based on nodal points such as ‘modernization’, ‘growth’ and ‘Europe’. The discursive construction of identity is crucial to achieving social consensus (Hall et al. 1978: 62) on what a crisis is and what needs to be done about it. Built on identity features, consensus is organized by setting the agenda using common themes that ‘make sense’ of who ‘we’ are (as well as what our own problems are), and of who our allies and opponents are, for the audiences addressed by different media. The symbolic figure of an opponent emerges as the constitutive other of the preferred identity formation, as the other is central to the constitution of the self, which always takes the form of a semi-full position challenged and subjected to antagonisms, events and processes of articulation (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 132). The signifiers that denote nationality, such as ‘we’, ‘Greeks’, ‘Greece’, ‘motherland’, ‘Cypriots’, ‘Cyprus’, and post-state identity constructions like ‘Europeans’ that stand for the EU and its inhabitants or political leaders, are what define the positive collective identity of the liberal media’s targeted audience. Cyprus emerges as an equivalent other that is useful for us to reflect upon, as it summarizes our essential features (positive and negative ones, coded in Table 12.2) and our potential (for progress and crisis resolution) according to the (neo)liberal social imaginary: Keeping the basic differences in mind, it appears that the injured Cypriot economy had an extra ally: the Cypriot society itself. In Cyprus, a consensus culture that does not exist in Greece is well established. That is why strikes were minimal compared to what we experienced in Athens. I mention that in the Cypriot parliament even the left AKEL voted their Memoranda laws. Further, the decades of British rule bequeathed a relatively autonomous – from political parties – public administration that was able to function. The general managers of the ministries do not change with every change of government. … The living memory of the invasion of 1974 also played its role. The experience of a real disaster made the Greek-Cypriots less prone to verbal excesses, sentimentality or conspiracy theories. Instead, it made them more willing to work to build a better country. It seems that they will succeed (‘Nicosia Shows the Way’, Kathimerini, 28 July 2015).

The codes composing the moments of equivalence and difference between Greece and Cyprus emerge above. Cyprus’s consensus on (austerity) reforms (despite class and political differences) is the chief difference between the two peoples, and the key to Cyprus’s success. The lack of consensus is the reason for Greece’s failure. What is articulated here is a demand . . . 279 . . .

Yiannis Mylonas

for national unity based on the needed consensus about the imperative of achieving economic recovery through reforms. Sociopolitical resistance is the main ‘other’ threatening ‘our’ potential success. The threat it poses is verified by the example of Cyprus, which emerges as a role model state where the achievement of consensus made it possible to implement reforms. Further discursive moments (‘British influence’ vs. ‘Ottoman influence’, ‘hard work’, ‘popular consensus on the need for the sacrifices demanded by necessary austerity reforms’ vs. ‘irrationality and conspiracy theories’, as codified in the liberal media’s differential themes in both tables) stress Greek difference in terms of the culturalist hegemonic crisis narratives that exceptionalize Greece, from the European/Western vantage point of (neo) liberal discourse. Ignoring the three hundred years of Ottoman rule of Cyprus that preceded the British period begun in in 1878, Greece supposedly lacked the ‘civilizing’ effects of a modern colonizer like the U.K. Instead, Greece was ruled by a less modern power, the Ottoman Empire, as modernity uncritically surfaced beyond considerations of colonial oppression, racism, civil war and exploitation (Chibber 2013). The critique of austerity is reduced to conspiracy theory and a non-rational, sentimental approach to reality, while the ‘success’ that is attributed to ‘all’ is measured according to fiscal data and experts’ discourse. Neoliberal accounts police the no-alternative dogma of austerity through the reification of capital’s economy, representing it as the only viable option of economic organization. In a ritualistic, repetitive style, Syriza is portrayed as a socialist, even communist party representing an appalling and catastrophic option that only abnormal people would choose: Possibly, any differences concern the, following the [country’s] self-destruction, progression to socialist transformation, something that none of them [Syriza and the Communist Party of Greece] dares to openly speak about. They know well that any direct reference to the regimes flourishing in Eastern Europe during Sovietia (sic) would cause only terror. (‘“Progressive” Solution through Self-Destruction’, Kathimerini.gr, 2 April 2013)

As Dardot and Laval (2013) show, anti-communism is one of the founding principles of the EU’s ‘common market’. This fierce anti-communism is deployed to organize the public idiom concerning the way any alternative to capitalism is framed. An upper-class anxiety surfaces against anything threatening to capital’s status quo (Ross 2008: 150). In texts like the above, the oppositional other, who is part of ‘us’ and shows the limits of ‘us’, making ‘our’ goals unattainable and our fullness incomplete, is usually articulated around the nodal signifier of ‘populism’. The symbolic figure of the ‘populist’ is central to the (neo)liberal crisis nar. . . 280 . . .

Greek Media Discourses of the Cypriot Crisis

ratives, emerging as the main obstacle to reaching ‘our missing fullness’, that is, the unity needed to proceed with reforms and to overcome the crisis according to the experts’ prescriptions. The oppositional other is represented by specific parties (e.g. Syriza) and persons (e.g. the Syriza leader Alexis Tsipras), and concentrates broader (negative) national characteristics presented in essentialist terms. These features are held to have created the crisis in the first place. Tables 12.1 and 12.2 list the relevant codes, forming a (neo)liberal chain of semantic equivalence that explains the (national) reasons for the crisis in both countries, where the countries’ structural shortcomings in the competitive global economy (e.g. lack of proactive reforms) are attributed to national characters. On an inter-discursive level, the ‘populist’ is the main threat identified by many EU leaders. The (neo)liberal, pragmatic discourse produces the opponent (the populist), overcomes the left-right distinctions and the values they represent, and from there, as shown earlier, formulates equivalences between a major left party (Syriza in 2013) and a neo-Nazi party (Golden Dawn) by establishing rhetorical similarities between them. A further contextualization of the ‘catchiest’ aspects of Syriza’s discourse (e.g. the earlier reference to ‘gangsters’) is meant to empty it of any systemic analytical validity by equating it with opportunistic neo-Nazi discourse that lacks any kind of sociological analytical rigour or political, or even rational, consistency (Kompatsiaris and Mylonas 2015; Paraskeva-Veloudoyanni 2015). The (neo)liberal discourse also promotes a political conformism based on politicians’ ‘proper’ behaviour. This regime, akin to a ‘bourgeois savoir vivre’ code, leaves the political establishment of the EU and its quasi-colonial attitude towards Greece unchallenged. As also shown, the left is identified with Stalinism, which, according to the (reactionary) proponents of this narrative, is further equated with Nazism as another side of ‘extremism’.

The Left-Wing Media’s Discourse on the Crises of Greece and Cyprus The left-wing media explain the Cypriot crisis in systemic terms, following the approaches of Keynesian and Marxist political economy (Mavroudeas 2014). As Table 12.1 shows, in the chain of equivalence established by leftist media regarding the Cypriot crisis, the neoliberal trends in the EU and the broader geopolitical antagonisms between the EU and other states are stressed as key reasons of the crisis. Also considered part of the crisis is the way Cyprus is treated by the EU policymakers and their reform strate. . . 281 . . .

Yiannis Mylonas

gies, which are seen as experiments for the EMU’s broader neoliberalization strategy of organizing economic institutions for the governance of the Eurozone. In the left media studied, the economic crisis of the EU and the events surrounding the rescue of the Cypriot banks, often function as nodal points in a discourse that seeks to produce a public idiom about the implications that such policies and events have for the majority of people in crisis-ridden societies at a time when crisis and austerity loom over all EU states. These nodal points signify the antagonistic relation (Laclau and Mouffe 1985: 122) between the people facing austerity regimes and the elites imposing them. Dispersed discursive elements signifying working people across nations are articulated in a chain of equivalence that highlights their common living conditions, threats and opponents. These opponents are articulated in terms of nation (Germany), institution (EU, troika and Eurogroup, as well as German, Greek and Cypriot governments), persons (Samaras, Dijsselbloem, Merkel and Schäuble,3 among others) and class (banks, multinational corporations, capital). The opposing parties caused the crisis with pro-capital regulation of the economy that led to the excesses in the financial sector worldwide, and to the rescue of banks at the expense of people. A heroically resisting popular identity is stressed; examples are drawn from events both contemporary and past: Regarding the opportunistic ‘No’ of Cyprus and its dramatic impact, it would be good to review some historical accounts that survive until today due to the Left’s ideological hegemony. We refer to the ‘No’ uttered by Greece in 1940 and to the terrifying adventures that the country got itself into because of it. What did we manage to do in 1940 with that ‘No’? Neither war nor occupation was averted, nor were famine and misery. On the contrary, the ‘plan B’ implemented was worse. Many people died, villages were destroyed, and there were shortages of food, medicine and basic necessities, creating a humanitarian crisis. Inflation wiped out the currency and the black market dominated the economy. Wouldn’t it be more mature to follow the path of conciliation and negotiation? Especially when we know that the foreign power will stubbornly implement its plan, regardless of the intentions of a small country like Greece? So we missed the chance to regroup, to agree on a cooperation project, and eventually get on a growth-track, so as to gradually disengage from the Italian-German occupation. (‘We Should Be Ashamed’, Avgi.gr, 4 April 2013)

The article where the above extract was found is ironic. It captures the (neo)liberal narrative (promoting consensus instead of resistance) and nullifies it by juxtaposing it with the context of World War II–era Greece, thereby drawing an analogy between foreign military aggression in the past and foreign financial aggression today. The signifier ‘No’, which refers to . . . 282 . . .

Greek Media Discourses of the Cypriot Crisis

Cyprus’s initial rejection of austerity, is juxtaposed with, and made equivalent to, Greece’s refusal to succumb to Italy’s 1940 ultimatum demanding Greece’s voluntary submission. Then, resistance was the only ‘no alternative’ solution to fascist/Nazi aggression, destruction and colonization. This particular signifier is a master narrative constructing national unity across the Greek political spectrum, as it was uttered in 1940 by the Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas in response to the Italian ultimatum for Greece’s surrender, and then supported by the Greek Communist Party leader Nikos Zachariadis while he was imprisoned by Metaxas’s dictatorial regime. Moderate left analyses produce a less antagonistic framework by seeking a non-political solution to the crisis and focusing on ‘our’ own flaws and deficits. They acknowledge the systemic aspects of the crisis, but pursue a realist discourse (similar to that of the liberal media) focused on the opportunities provided by the very institutional framework and system that are acknowledged to be part of the problem. The system itself cannot be changed (at the moment), so one needs to strive for improvement of the system. A smarter economy that can include more people will be more productive, allowing surpluses to guarantee both adequate profits and adequate redistribution potentials. Competition, however, as the key driver of capitalism, is unlikely to allow such an inclusive, win-win situation to emerge (Dardot and Laval 2013; Ho 2009). Table 12.2 shows the ways in which left-wing media attempt to use the Cypriot crisis to stimulate reflection on critical analyses of (neoliberal) hegemony and the possibilities of resistance against neoliberalism in Greece, Cyprus and the EU itself. Such resistance potentials are discursively formed through the construction of a broader chain of equivalence around identity features common to the middle and lower classes of Greece and Cyprus, and to other people in the region (Turkey) and the EU. This is part of a counter-hegemonic left strategy best expressed by Syriza, which has succeeded in winning Greek elections and challenging the EU’s neoliberal authoritarianism, but has also hit its limits, specifically its inability to dismantle austerity within a Eurozone/EU framework, without challenging capitalism and without striving for a post-capitalist, post-growth, politicoeconomic model and social culture (Harvey 2014: 296). The limits of the leftist counter-hegemonic strategy are encountered and articulated in the discussion of Cyprus’s eventual acceptance of austerity without mass popular opposition to it, and also when telling the story of Cyprus’s ‘moderate success’ with reforms, announced by experts in 2014 and again promoted in 2015. These limits are discursively encountered through a tactical form of appropriation, recontextualization and subversion: . . . 283 . . .

Yiannis Mylonas

[I]n Cyprus, they are experiencing an unusual ‘success story’, of the Greek sort. The financial data are better than expected, with the primary deficit dropping faster than the Troika’s objectives. Nevertheless, a return to growth is not expected, nor in 2015, mainly as a result of the combination of high unemployment, reduced wages and the shrinking savings of Cypriot households (‘The Eurocrisis Is Still Here’, Avgi.gr, 7 August 2014).

The author here challenges the mainstream neoliberal discourse of the success of the Cypriot austerity reforms programme (and the political affordances of this discourse for the Greek case), using the facts and the signifiers of the opponents’ rationale (the unchallenged use of relevant financial data to support the Cypriot ‘success story’, and the references to economic vectors such as ‘primary surplus’ and ‘growth’). On an interdiscursive level (Fairclough 2003: 35), the idea of the ‘success story’ was publicly developed by the conservative Greek government of 2013 to present Greece as a ‘success story’ of austerity. In the article quoted above, oppositional agents appropriate those particular signifiers to direct attention towards the social, political and humanitarian effects of the crisis. In doing so they suggest a different reading of the economy too, by demonstrating the class inequalities bred by austerity. In the same vein, the ‘success story’ signifier is used here to challenge the discourse of Cyprus’s success. This tactic of the left rather successfully discredited the austerity camp’s propaganda and goals. However, the excerpt above still maintains the idea of ‘growth’ unchallenged, implying a consensus around the demand for growth as a solution to the social problems of the crisis. Growth is a fundamental capitalist demand, so the opposition’s unproblematic acquiescence to it (without stressing the need to develop economic models and lifestyles other than consumerism or careerism in today’s antagonistic sense) suggests that the left might possibly offer a more efficient mode of planning. As Harvey (2014: 171) has shown, ‘inequality is foundational for capital’; therefore the demands for both redistribution of wealth and capital growth are contradictory. Consequently, the discourse spread by Syriza and the supportive media is stymied by its opponents’ agenda-setting and strategic planning (De Certeau 1988), despite Syriza’s tactical victories. Syriza went as far as winning national elections but was unable to implement its contradictory policies, which lacked a counter-capitalist social imaginary and, being also caught in a negative and reactionary European and global geopolitical context (Hirschman, 1991: 6), dominated by a ‘free market’ fundamentalism hostile to all attempts challenging it, finally succumbed to austerity as a ‘no alternative’ dogma. In both Cyprus and in Greece, the left-wing media do not clearly discuss the resolution of the crisis. After Syriza’s concession to austerity, the hegemonic crisis discourse in Greece, with its insistence on austerity – along with a cul. . . 284 . . .

Greek Media Discourses of the Cypriot Crisis

turalist-moralist crisis explanation, further developed a highly reactionary public repertoire against the leftist challenging of neoliberalism, which – in Syriza’s case – supposedly made the crisis worse by stalling the ‘reforms’. Syriza’s disconnection from progressive social movements and the working class after its concession to the Troika’s demands, as well as its inability to develop a counter-hegemonic political identity, vision and agenda beyond the neoliberal framework, are important factors strengthening the neoliberal block.

Conclusions This study investigated how Greek media aligned with different political perspectives presented the economic crisis in Cyprus and the policies adopted to tackle it. Discourse theory was used to analyse selected relevant articles appearing in four media representing rival political discourses – (neo) liberal and left – striving to achieve ideological hegemony over Greek society’s understanding of its own crisis. Cyprus is thus presented as a historical example to learn from but also to avoid: a success story of reforms and growth to be admired and emulated by Greece, but also another moment of neoliberal aggression and a source of potential resistance to it. These discourses are premised on different understandings of reality and different priorities in social life. When it comes to the neoliberal discourse, the liberal media start with the hypothesis that the crisis is a problem in an otherwise stable realm. Therefore ‘we’ need to apply the ‘right’ prescription to fix it, so that the crisis will end and things will return to normal and the economy will continue growing (Stråth and Wodak 2009: 27). The economy and the policies to ‘fix’ it are therefore never questioned as such. Official accounts and mainstream economics’ measures of success (return to growth, restoration of faith in financial markets) legitimize these hypotheses while only barely dealing with the crisis’ consequences for democratic institutions and societies’ lifeworlds. The restoration of capital growth and faith in the EU’s crisis policies will lead to societal progress. It is therefore important that citizens embrace these objectives and internalize them in order to boost competition at every level of social life. Thus the bio-political element of neoliberalism also emerges in this emphasis on individuals’ responsibility for the crisis’ causes and resolution (Dardot and Laval 2013). These media approach society in economic terms focused on numeric rationalizations of reality. They present a realpolitik analysis and counter. . . 285 . . .

Yiannis Mylonas

crisis strategy based on tactical compromises, conformity and the need for broad social consensus on austerity reforms, and they do nothing to challenge the structure and the system of politico-economic globalization, but instead treat the crisis as an opportunity to better integrate peripheral Cyprus and Greece into the system’s core. These media also iterate a Greek exceptionalism thesis, understanding the Greek crisis as a self-inflicted one due to leftist populism and lack of modernity. Additionally, these media manifest an unproblematized belief in endless compound growth, individual entrepreneurialism, modernity, Westernization, Europeanization and progress, all undergirded by the capitalist mode of production. The authority of experts and of numbers’ factuality in support of the Cypriot economic recovery legitimizes support for austerity among the liberal media, which in 2014 and 2015 developed a sharper polemic against the anti-austerity bloc in Greece. The construction of a consensus based on a neoliberal, Europeanist identity is crucial to developing austerity reforms and curbing resistance to them, which is seen as the path to economic recovery in Greece (following the ‘successful’ example of Cyprus). Left-wing media pursue a systemic understanding of the crisis in Cyprus and elsewhere, and focus on the sociopolitical effects of the crisis and its management (through austerity). The media studied likewise focus on systemic issues related to the financialization of the economy and economic competition within the EU (Mavroudeas 2014: 86). Crisis is understood as an inherent feature of capitalism, which is an unjust system, especially if it is ‘unregulated’. For this reason the left-wing media foreground the political and human costs of crisis and austerity. Therefore the social majorities exposed to the destructive capacities of neoliberal restructuring should politicize their discontent by acknowledging the systemic aspect of the problems caused by the crisis and austerity, and the different regimes of responsibility and injustice it entails. Once the numerical data offered by the liberal media have been challenged on the grounds of the detrimental social effects of the crisis and austerity, a different hierarchy of responsibility for the crisis is communicated in terms of class and politico-economic inequalities. At the same time, these narratives attempt to achieve hegemony over the transnational class-oriented identity by focusing on the crisis-stricken countries of people like the Cypriots, and thereby manifesting a form of Europeanness distinct from that of the elites. However, socialism was not defended by the kind of the left represented in the studied media, which shy away from socialist demands. As the analysis showed, socialism was itself a nodal point of the liberal media’s offensive against the left, through its equation to Stalinism. . . . 286 . . .

Greek Media Discourses of the Cypriot Crisis

The (neo)liberal bloc is the hegemonic one, so it is able to publicly set the agenda of the crisis. Often the left adopts some (neo)liberal demands and arguments by either recontextualizing them (Fairclough 2003: 222) in leftist narratives, or complying and responding to them, often in an apologetic fashion. The struggle for hegemony and counter-hegemony therefore involves defining the opponent and setting the questions that the latter should respond to, as well as territorializing (Deleuze and Guattari 2004: 270) the opponent’s frames and arguments by either excluding or recontextualizing them. The events of summer 2015 – when Syriza, the main political agent of the broader leftist discourse studied here, caved in to the Eurogroup’s and troika’s demands for austerity and for a shift towards a post-political agenda based on the no-alternative-to-austerity dogma – signify the limits of this counter-hegemonic strategy for Greece, Cyprus and elsewhere. It should not be forgotten that in Cyprus, it was the left government of AKEL that requested the country’s submission to the European Support Mechanism and initially negotiated the terms of the agreement with the troika, through without managing to successfully present an alternative discourse and promote an alternative policy. This study has identified a key issue in this particular defeat: the lack of a social imaginary beyond capitalism and its rationales for progress and prosperity.

YIANNIS MYLONAS is Assistant Professor at the Media Department of the National Research University – Higher School of Economics University in Moscow, Russia. He has a background in philosophy, social psychology and media studies. His research interests proceed from theoretical foundations of critical theory and post-structuralism. He previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer in media sociology at Lund University, and as a lecturer of media and culture at Copenhagen University.

Notes 1. ‘Cyprus’ is used in this chapter to refer to the Republic of Cyprus. 2. The study focused on twenty-six selected news, interviews, analysis and opinion articles published at Kathimerini.gr, twenty-nine articles published at Capital.gr, forty-five articles at Avgi.gr, and nine articles at Tvxs.gr. 3. Politicians of EU countries. . . . 287 . . .

Yiannis Mylonas

References Carpentier, N. 2011. Media and Participation: A Site of Ideological-Democratic Struggle. Bristol: Intellect. Chibber, V. 2013. Postcolonial Theory and the Spectre of Capital. London: Verso. Crouch, C. 2004. Post Democracy. London: Polity Press. ———. 2011. The Strange Non-death of Neoliberalism. London: Polity Press. Dahlberg, L. 2014. ‘Capitalism as a Discursive System? Interrogating Discourse Theory’s Contribution to Critical Political Economy’, Critical Discourse Studies 11(3): 257–71. Dardot, P., and C. Laval. 2013. The New Way of the World: On the Neoliberal Society. London: Verso. De Certeau, M. 1988. The Practice of Everyday Life. Berkeley: University of California Press. Deleuze, G., and F. Guattari. 2004. ‘On Capitalism and Desire’, in G. Deleuze, Desert Islands, and Other Texts, 1953–1974. Los Angeles: Semiotext(e), pp. 262–73. Deuze, M. 2005. ‘What Is Journalism? Professional Identity and Ideology of Journalists Reconsidered’, Journalism 6(4): 442–64. Doudaki, V., et al. 2016. ‘Framing the Cypriot Economic Crisis: In the Service of the Neoliberal Vision’, Journalism, DOI: 10.1177/1464884916663601. Fairclough, N. 2003. Analyzing Discourse: Textual Analysis for Social Research. London: Routledge. Hall, S., et al. 1978. Policing the Crisis: Mugging, the State, Law and Order. London: Macmillan. Harvey, D. 2014. Seventeen Contradictions and the End of Capitalism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Hirschman, A.O. 1991. The Rhetorics of Reaction: Perversity, Futility, Jeopardy. Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. Ho, K. 2009. Liquidated: An Ethnography of Wall Street. London: Duke University Press Books. Kompatsiaris, P., and Y. Mylonas. 2015. ‘Web 2.0 Nazi Propaganda: Golden Dawn’s Affect, Spectacle and Identity Constructions in Social Media’, in C. Fuchs and D. Trotier (eds), Social Media, Politics and the State: Protest, Revolutions, Riots, Crime, and Policing in the Age of Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. London: Routledge, pp. 109–30. Koselleck, R., and M.W. Richter. 2006. ‘Crisis’, Journal of the History of Ideas 67(2): 357–400. Laclau, E., and C. Mouffe. 1985. Hegemony and Socialist Strategy: Towards a Radical Democratic Politics. London: Verso. Macgilchrist, F. 2011. Journalism and the Political: Discursive Tensions in News Coverage of Russia. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Mavroudeas, S. (ed.). 2014. Greek Capitalism in Crisis: Marxist Analyses. London: Routledge. Mavroudeas, S., and D. Paitaridis. 2014. ‘Mainstream Accounts of the Greek Crisis: More Heat than Light?’ in S. Mavroudeas (ed.), Greek Capitalism in Crisis: Marxist Analyses. London: Routledge, pp. 9–32. Mullen, F. 2013. ‘How Much Did the Mari Explosion Cost?’ Financial Mirror, 9 July. Retrieved 23 March 2017 from http://www.financialmirror.com/blog-details.php?nid=1109. Mylonas, Y. 2014. ‘Crisis, Austerity and Opposition in Mainstream Media Discourses of Greece’, Journal of Critical Discourse Studies 11(3): 305–21. Papadatos, D. 2014. ‘The Greek EU-IMF Memoranda: A Problematic Strategy for Greek Capitalism’, in S. Mavroudeas (ed.), Greek Capitalism in Crisis: Marxist Analyses. London: Routledge, pp. 67–81. Paraskeva-Veloudoyanni, D. 2015. The Enemy, Blood, the Retaliator: Analyzing Thirteen Speeches of the Golden Dawn ‘Leader’. Athens: Nisos. Phelan, S., and L. Dahlberg. 2011. ’Discourse Theory and Critical Media Politics: An Introduction’, in S. Phelan and L. Dahlberg (eds), Discourse Theory and Critical Media Politics. London: Palgrave MacMillan, pp. 1–40. Pleios, G. 2013. ‘Τα ΜΜΕ απέναντι στην κρίση [The Media against the Crisis]’, in G. Pleios (ed.), Η κρίση και τα ΜΜΕ [The Crisis and the Media]. Athens: Papazisis, pp. 87–134. Ross, K. 2008. The Emergence of Social Space: Rimbaud and the Paris Commune. London: Verso. . . . 288 . . .

Greek Media Discourses of the Cypriot Crisis Saldaña, J. 2009. The Coding Manual for Qualitative Researchers. London: Sage. Schou, J. 2016. ‘Ernesto Laclau and Critical Media Studies: Marxism, Capitalism, and Critique’, tripleC 14(1): 292–311. Streeck, W. 2016. How Will Capitalism End? London: Verso. Stråth, B., and R. Wodak. 2009. ‘Europe–History–Politics–Media-History: Constructing Crisis?’ in M. Kryzanowski, A. Triandafyllidou and R. Wodak (eds), The European Public Sphere and the Media: Europe in Crisis. Houndmills: Palgrave McMillan, pp. 15–33.

. . . 289 . . .

S

Conclusion

TUDYING CONFLICTS IN CYPRUS

Lessons Learned for Conflict Studies

Nico Carpentier

In the 1957 book Bitter Lemons, Lawrence Durrell describes his three-year stay in Cyprus from 1953 to 1956. This period included the start of the independence war against the British colonizer, which would rage on until 1959, and where ‘the vagaries of fortune and the demons of ill luck dragged Cyprus into the stock market of world affairs’ (Durrell 2012: 100). Earlier in his book, Durrell writes about the visits of Arthur Rimbaud and Herbert Kitchener to Cyprus, where the former was supervising the building of the Governor’s summer residence and the latter was charged to conduct the British Survey of Cyprus. These narrations provoke the following comment from Durrell (ibid.: 23), which can also be mobilized to reflect on the chapters of our own book: ‘In Cyprus I stumbled upon many more such echoes from forgotten moments of history with which to illuminate the present.’ The idea of ‘forgotten moments of history’ sometimes seems to apply to Cypriot history as a whole, and the ways Cypriots remember it (or not). Not long ago, at the opening of the second edition of my photography exhibition on Cypriot nationalism and memorialization at the Cypriot arts centre NeMe (in Limassol) in February 2016, I gave a lecture about this project for students of the nearby Cyprus University of Technology. The lecture’s PowerPoint presentation had been used before, outside Cyprus, and it included a series of historical photographs that I often use to explain the very basics of Cypriot history. In my eyes, they are iconic representations of the Cypriot past: an old drawing of the Ottoman armies attacking Nicosia in 1570; one of Robert D. Egby’s tragically beautiful pictures of an EOKA (Εθνική Οργάνωσις Κύπριων Αγωνιστών, National Organization of Cypriot Fighters)

Conclusion

attack that left a British soldier and a local shopkeeper injured; a photo of EOKA leader Georgios Grivas posing in the mountains that was seized by the British forces and later inspired many of the Grivas statues on Cyprus; Egby’s photo of Drosoulla Demetriades, sitting in shock next to the body of her partner, Special Constable (Edward) Bonici Mompalda, of Maltese origins, killed by the EOKA; a photo of the burned-out presidential palace after the July 1974 coup, and finally, a photo of Turkish paratroopers landing in Cyprus in July 1974. In lectures outside Cyprus, these pictures provide visual support for a very necessary narration about the island’s history, which is almost always unknown to non-Cypriot audiences and is sometimes met with curiosity and interest. After all, Cyprus remains ‘geopolitically, strategically, and, arguably, culturally … at the periphery of Europe’, even if the island moved ‘from the “outer” to the “inner periphery”’ with its ascension into the European Union in 2004 (Michael 2011: 192). The politics and histories of such a peripheral country do not feature very prominently on the European (or international) agenda, and Cyprus is often, wholly or partially, reduced to its touristic attractiveness and exotic nature. One significant exception is the Cyprus economic crisis, which generated considerable attention (see e.g. Lockett 2013) for a relatively brief time, after which the public–media– political agenda complex shifted its attention to other issues such as the war in Syria and Greece’s economic crisis, combined with anxiety about refugee flows and terror attacks. Looking at the chapters in this volume, one cannot help but notice how, in Chapter 11, by Airaghi and Avraamidou, the U.K. coverage of the Cypriot bailout was just as much about the U.K. relationship with Germany and the EU as it was about Cyprus, and in Chapter 12, by Mylonas how the Greek press represented Greece and its crisis through Cyprus. The rapid disappearance of Cyprus’s economic situation from the European agenda, combined with its re-articulation to fit other, national, agendas and its general long-term absence from EU structures and institutions seem to be a case in point to support Jameson’s concept of the ‘fragmentation of time into a series of perpetual presents’, and his statement that ‘[t]he informational function of the media would thus be to help us forget, to serve as the very agents and mechanisms for our historical amnesia’ ( Jameson 1992: 179). But at the Limassol lecture, with Cypriot students, I thought it unnecessary to discuss the ‘obvious’ and felt safe, even obliged, to skip that part of the lecture. Instead, during the Q&A part of my lecture, one of the Cypriot lecturers responsible for the course my guest lecture was part of mentioned that I was overly optimistic about my student audience’s historical knowl. . . 291 . . .

Nico Carpentier

edge. I then went back to each of these six pictures to ask the students who knew it, and who could explain its meaning and relevance. Surprisingly, the level of recognition was disappointingly limited, as was their ability to explain and contextualize the images. Though only anecdotal, this experience lends support to the claim that much of the Cypriot history that is vital to understanding the Cyprus Problem, as well as the recent economic crisis, is not very well known. There is some irony in this situation, as ‘the slogan “I don’t forget” dominated Greek-Cypriot educational culture’ (Zembylas, Charalambous and Charalambous 2016: 61). Later, in the 1990s, the formulation of this guiding principle was expanded to ‘I know, I don’t forget and I struggle’ (ibid.: 62; see also Charalambous, Charalambous and Zembylas 2014). To be sure, we should immediately add that the representation of history itself, in the educational system as elsewhere, is very much part of the Cyprus Problem, as Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot historical narrations focus on different events and different periods to feed the politics of blame1 in both communities. Richmond (1999: 42), for instance, captures the different historical focal points as follows: ‘It is important to note that the two communities in Cyprus, and their motherlands, have completely different perceptions of the history of the island; ‘history’ (i.e. the struggle for liberation) ended in 1974 for the Turkish Cypriots and began then for Greek Cypriots.’ Thus the quotation of Durrell that opened this concluding chapter – ‘In Cyprus I stumbled upon many more such echoes from forgotten moments of history with which to illuminate the present’ (Durrell 2012: 23) – also prompts me to emphasize that this process of forgetting is not neutral, but very much part of political struggles over history that continue to haunt Cyprus. This book’s analyses of the Cyprus conflicts (plural) demonstrate the importance of history for studies of conflict, especially long-lasting conflict with limited levels of collective violence. But they also show how the politics of history (Zinn 1970) and the politics of memory (Hodgkin and Radstone 2003; Bryant and Papadakis 2012) operate in the particularity of the Cypriot context. In this book, Chapter 10 by Arsoy illustrates the meandering meanings (and political utilizations) of a treasure myth, and my own Chapter 1 analyses how commemoration sites and statues communicate dominant histories but cannot escape counter-hegemonic voices, which again points to the politicization of Cypriot history. Analyses of the Cypriot conflicts matter to conflict studies, and not only because they render this politicization of history visible through the presence of multiple histories, all circulating on a still rather small island. These analyses also show the long-lasting impact of cultural traumas caused by . . . 292 . . .

Conclusion

violence. After all, quite some time has passed since the intense violence of the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, but those decades’ impact on the Cypriot cultures can hardly be underestimated. This brings me to emphasize the importance of the notion of cultural trauma for conflict studies. Of course, individual trauma, described by Erikson (1976: 153) as ‘a blow to the psyche that breaks through one’s defenses so suddenly and with such brutal force that one cannot react to it efficiently’, is highly relevant to reflection upon the consequences of conflict, but the notion of cultural trauma merits an equal share of our attention. As I have argued before (Carpentier 2015a), a cultural trauma is more than an aggregate of individual traumata (see Kansteiner 2004: 209). It is a cultural phenomenon that ‘appears in the aftermath of a particular type of social change’ (Sztompka 2000: 452). It builds on the assumption that ‘certain events are inherently traumatic for large collectives, such as nations or specific ethnic groups’ (Meek 2010: 1), although caution is warranted when defining nations (and groups) as subjects, even if Butler (2004: 92) writes that ‘nations are not the same as individual psyches but both can be described as subjects, albeit of different orders.’ Sztompka (2000) lists four characteristics of cultural trauma, which all need to be present in conjunction: time (a sudden event), substance and scope (a radical and deep-cutting event), origins (an event that is inflicted upon us) and mental frame (an unexpected and shocking event). The criteria fit the Cyprus conflicts quite ‘nicely’, although, given the long chain of traumatizing events, we might need to use cultural traumata (plural) instead when talking about the impact of long-lasting conflicts on what Borowiec (2000) called ‘a troubled island’. The emphasis on the cultural dimension brings another important element to the foreground. All too often, as I have also argued before (Carpentier 2015b), conflict studies has focused on the more material dimensions of conflict. To give one example, Galtung’s (1969) influential distinction between personal violence and structural violence, as a way to reflect on peace research, is operationalized by reverting to material versions of concepts such as, on the one hand, bodily harm, tools, actors, organizations and targets, and on the other, power distribution, inequality, actors, systems, structures, ranks and levels (ibid.: 174–75). Galtung’s (2009) equally important conflict triangle model connects three concepts, namely conflict, attitude and behaviour. Here conflict is viewed as incompatibilities or contradictions, as he explains in the description of his 2009 version of this model: ‘Conflict has been defined in terms of incompatibilities, of contradictions, and that should not be confused with the attitudinal and behavioral consequences of conflict’ (ibid.: 105). . . . 293 . . .

Nico Carpentier

Even more recent models, such as the ‘hourglass’ model of conflict resolution responses (Ramsbotham, Miall and Woodhouse 2011), tend to emphasize the material aspect. In this ‘hourglass’ model a more temporal dimension with escalation and de-escalation phases is added to Galtung’s approach, allowing the authors to distinguish between conflict containment, conflict settlement and conflict transformation. Interestingly, the cultural is present in this model through the notion of cultural peace-building, but only in connection to conflict transformation. The material emphasis of traditional conflict studies should not be taken as disregard for the importance that is attributed to the psychological, which might eventually lead to the discursive-cultural. Galtung’s conflict triangle model places considerable importance on the notion of attitude, which he sees as the ‘mental states of the actors’, as distinct from the ‘somatic states of the actors in the actionsystem’, a difference grounded in ‘the age-old body-soul division between the somatic and the mental states’ (Galtung 2009: 36). But the need to acknowledge the discursive-cultural components of conflict remains. However significant the work of authors such as Galtung is, their focus on the psychological (more than on the cultural and the discursive) feeds into a more individualized approach, grounded in a realist paradigm. Yet some authors, particularly when discussing war, have emphasized the cultural-discursive dimension of violence and war, as is illustrated by Keen (1986: 10): ‘In the beginning we create the enemy. Before the weapon comes the image. We think others to death and then invent the battle-axe or the ballistic missiles with which to actually kill them.’ Or, as Jabri (1996: 23) writes: ‘knowledge of human phenomena such as war is, in itself, a constitutive part of the world of meaning and practice.’ Here, we should keep in mind that ‘the exclusionist discourse of violent conflict is not … confined to the battlefield’, as again Jabri (ibid.: 138) reminds us: ‘It is a discourse which politically legitimates and reproduces a categorisation based on those who are defined as legitimately within, against all external others, who are variously targets of direct violence and/or institutionalized discrimination.’ Even if the discursive-cultural dimensions have gained more prominence in conflict studies – Jackson refers to the ‘constructivist turn’ (2008: 174) in international relations to legitimate a more explicit presence of constructivism in conflict resolution (ibid.: 180ff.) – the critiques favouring the introduction of more culturalist, constructivist/ionist and post-structuralist traditions in conflict studies remain. As Ramsbotham, Miall and Woodhouse (2011: 408) observe, regarding the post-structuralist critique on traditional conflict resolution approaches:

. . . 294 . . .

Conclusion

[T]here is a tendency here for post-structural thinking to ignore the fierce disruption and discontinuity of radical disagreement … taking the phenomenon of radical disagreement seriously, as advocated by Ramsbotham, may in some measure help to temper what is at times a somewhat didactic tendency in critical theory and a relativist tendency in post-structuralism.

Of course, this emphasis on the discursive-cultural does not mean denying the existence of the material. Here, we should resist the misinterpretations of discursive-cultural theory that have produced critiques claiming that discursive-cultural theories argue for the primacy of the discursive and the cultural. To avoid these misunderstandings, it is important to explicate that the discursive is not all there is, nor is there only culture. The discursive-cultural clearly plays a vital role in giving meaning to our social realities, but that is not the same as claiming there is nothing but culture or nothing but discourse. Here, I would like to argue that conflict studies can also benefit from a non-hierarchical approach to the discursive and the material that understands the relationship between the discursive and the material as a knot: both components are intrinsically, intensely and intimately interconnected, yet neither of the components is necessarily dominant. In this discursivematerial knot, the discursive is essential in giving meaning to the material, and the material becomes invested with these meanings, but the material also has the autonomy to invite attribution of particular meanings to itself, and to keep other meanings from being integrated into the assemblage. For analytical reasons, it often makes sense to select either the material or the discursive as the starting point, and then add the other component of the discursive-material knot to the equation, as is done also in this book. In its first part, the material functions as starting point in, for instance, Chapter 2’s (Christidis and Gazi) investigation of how sound (in its materiality) disregards the division of Nicosia and travels across its fortifications. Chapter 3 (Drucker and Gumpert) looks into the materiality of the bridges of Nicosia, whether these are media organizations with their particular infrastructures, improvised bridges spanning military roads or the construction of a new bridge-square to deal with urban sprawl. Chapter 4 (Spyridou and Milioni) analyses the material funding of an equally material public media organization, and my own Chapter 1 studies the materiality of statues and commemoration sites. At the same time, meanings are attributed to all these materialities through a set of discursive orders related to togetherness and radical difference; friend and enemy; nation, state and community; economy, scarcity, efficiency and public service.

. . . 295 . . .

Nico Carpentier

Inversely, the chapters in the second and third parts of this book start from these particular discursive orders and the signifying practices of the many different (media) actors involved in the Cyprus conflicts. Chapters 5, 6 and 7 in the second part, along with Chapters 11 and 12 in the third, all deal with the signifying practices of different media organizations, including Greek-Cypriot, Turkish-Cypriot, Greek and British newspapers, the Greek-Cypriot public broadcaster CyBC and Turkish news websites. These chapters analyse the meanings that media organizations assign to a variety of situations, practices and actors (including selves and others), often (but not always) by reverting to hegemonic nationalist and capitalist discourses. The chapters that deal with the Cypriot Problem illustrate how this conflict itself, and the complex relationships with the other(s), gives meaning to the ‘own’ nation, through the creation of constitutive outsides, whether this concerns the coverage of the Cypriot peace process (Chapter 5, by Christophorou and ahin), or the sports coverage of football matches (Chapter 9, by Kejanlioglu and Güney). And the case of the economic crisis spotlights the hegemonic discourse of capitalism, which remains a crucial normative reference point in evaluation of the many different practices (Chapter 6, by Doudaki), in combination with a focus on the national self, even when it is outside Cyprus (e.g. the U.K., as in Airaghi and Avraamidou’s Chapter 11, or Greece in Mylonas’ Chapter 12). These nationalist and capitalist discourses, as well as those about national identity and the economic order, are not outside the material. The discourses, along with the signifying practices that identify with them, give meaning to a diversity of material practices and actors. Both the Cyprus Problem and the Cypriot economic crisis have strong material components – in the former case, for instance, the buffer zone, its fortifications and the armed bodies that occupy them, as well as the very material destructions that led to the creation of this buffer zone and its imposition of a decades-long separation of human bodies and groups, and of organizations and state apparatuses (recognized or not). The Cypriot economic crisis has an equally significant material component comprising international and national-Cypriot financial institutions, state ministries, evaporated capital, and the again highly material consequences of economic crisis, in tandem with unemployment and poverty as two tragic examples of the outcomes. However, these materialities do not determine the discursive frameworks that give meaning to them – both nationalism and capitalism are themselves ideological backbones providing discursive frameworks allowing us to make sense of these materialities, and to create a past, present and future. The argument here is that discourses and materials permanently and inces. . . 296 . . .

Conclusion

santly interact, as they are assembled in an ever-changing discursive-material knot. Simultaneously, some chapters reveal the instability of certain discourses and materials. This contingency sometimes emerges from counter-hegemonic contestations that reject dominant (hegemonic) discursive orders and produce alternative frameworks of intelligibility in their stead. Chapter 8 (Papa and Dahlgren) plays an important role in this aspect because it illustrates the discursive struggle about national identity, peace and togetherness with a focus on the actions of the Occupy the Buffer Zone movement, which also implied another contestation of the decades-old claim of exclusivity that the Cypriot political elites have placed on the resolution of the Cyprus Problem. But discursive struggles are not waged only by activists with counter-hegemonic agendas: elite actors too, such as mainstream media and political actors, become engaged in these discursive struggles, sometimes moving outside the elite consensus, which again creates contingency. In this book, Chapter 5 (Christophorou and Şahin) and Chapter 12 (Mylonas) illustrate the workings of the political and its contestations at the level of societal elites, whether this concerns Cypriot newspapers moving outside the realm of irreconcilable conditions placed on unification, or Greek newspapers defending anti-austerity politics. Finally, contingency sometimes originates from the material, which has the capacity to dislocate discourses. In such a case, the discourse cannot accommodate particular material changes because it is temporarily or permanently impossible to integrate them. Such dislocations force discourses into scenarios of repair, re-articulation, or disintegration. Chapter 7 (Karayianni) demonstrates these logics of (what the author calls) de-territorialization and re-territorialization, in the course of analysing the difficulties Greek-Cypriot media organizations encountered when the border between north and south, which until then had been virtually hermetically closed, opened in 2003. By making the humanity of the faces of the other visible, this dislocatory event disrupted the hegemonic positioning of self and other as enemies. The internal complexity and contingency of discourses and materials, and of the interactions between them (here labelled the discursive-material knot, following the theoretical work done in Carpentier 2017) is probably one of the most important routes that conflict studies can take to strengthen its analytical, methodological and theoretical practices, which still remain too much locked into a realist paradigm despite the slowly increasing prominence of more constructionist approaches. A paradigmatic dialogue – one that aims not to establish dominance, assimilation or amalgamation, but to allow reflection on how the material and the discursive interact, is a much . . . 297 . . .

Nico Carpentier

needed next step for conflict studies. And here lies this book’s main contribution: grounded in transdisciplinarity and multiperspectivity, it aims to combine chapters that, in always unique ways, open our eyes to the knotted interactions of the material and the discursive that characterize conflict.

NICO CARPENTIER is Professor of Media and Communication Studies in the Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University. In addition, he holds two part-time positions as Associate Professor in the Communication Studies Department of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB, Free University of Brussels) and Docent at Charles University in Prague. He is also a Research Fellow at the Cyprus University of Technology and Loughborough University. His latest book is The Discursive-Material Knot: Cyprus in Conflict and Community Media Participation.

Notes 1.

E. Said (1994) uses the concept of ‘politics of blame’ in Culture and Imperialism. Papadakis (2000: 238) applies this concept in describing the Cypriot context. It is also used in Iordanidou and Samaras (2014) in relation to the Cypriot economic crisis.

References Borowiec, A. 2000. Cyprus: A Troubled Island. Westport: Praeger. Bryant, R., and Y. Papadakis (eds). 2012. Cyprus and the Politics of Memory: History, Community and Conflict. London: I.B. Tauris. Butler, J. 2004. Precarious Life: The Powers of Mourning and Violence. London: Verso. Carpentier, N. 2015a. ‘From Individual Tragedy to Societal Dislocation: The Filmic Representation of Tragedy, Dislocation, and Cultural Trauma in the Dreyfus Affair’, in N. Carpentier (ed.), Culture, Trauma & Conflict: Cultural Studies Perspectives on Contemporary War. Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars, pp. 271–97. ———. 2015b. ‘Articulating Participation and Agonism: A Case Study on the Agonistic Rearticulations of the Cyprus Problem in the Broadcasts of the Community Broadcaster MYCYradio’, The Cyprus Review 27(1): 129–53. ———. 2017. The Discursive-Material Knot: Cyprus in Conflict and Community Media Participation. New York: Peter Lang. Charalambous, P., C. Charalambous and M. Zembylas. 2014. ‘Old and New Policies in Dialogue: Greek-Cypriot Teachers’ Interpretations of a Peace-Related Initiative through Existing Policy Discourses’, British Educational Research Journal 40(1): 79–101. Durrell, L. 2012 [1957]. Bitter Lemons. New York: Open Road Integrated Media. . . . 298 . . .

Conclusion Erikson, K. 1976. Everything in Its Path. New York: Simon and Schuster. Galtung, J. 1969. ‘Violence, Peace and Peace Research’, Journal of Peace Research 6(3): 167–91. ———. 2009. Theories of Conflict: Definitions, Dimensions, Negations, Formations. Oslo: Transcend. Hodgkin, K., and S. Radstone (eds). 2003. Contested Pasts: The Politics of Memory. London: Routledge. Iordanidou, S., and A.N. Samaras. 2014. ‘Financial Crisis in the Cyprus Republic’, Javnost – The Public 21(4): 63–76. Jabri, V. 1996. Discourses on Violence: Conflict Analysis Reconsidered. Manchester: Manchester University Press. Jackson, R. 2008. ‘Constructivism and Conflict Resolution’, in J. Bercovitch, V. Kremenyuk and I.W. Zartman (eds), The Sage Handbook of Conflict Resolution. London: Sage, pp. 172–89. Jameson, F. 1992. ‘Postmodernism and Consumer Society’, in P. Brooker (ed.), Modernism/ Postmodernism. New York: Longman, pp. 163–79. Kansteiner, W. 2004. ‘Genealogy of a Category Mistake: A Critical Intellectual History of the Cultural Trauma Metaphor’, Rethinking History 8(2): 193–221. Keen, S. 1986. Faces of the Enemy. New York: Harper and Row. Lockett, T. 2013. ‘Cyprus and the European Public Sphere’, European Union 2.0, 2 April. Retrieved 15 May 2016 from https://tonylbxl.wordpress.com/2013/04/02/cyprus-andthe-european-public-sphere/. Meek, A. 2010. Trauma and Media: Theories, Histories and Images. New York: Routledge. Michael, M.S. 2011. Resolving the Cyprus Conflict: Negotiating History. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Papadakis, Y. 2000. ‘Memories of Walls, Walls of Memories’, in Y. Ioannou, F. Métral and M. Yon (eds), Chypre et la Méditerranée Orientale. Formations Identitaires: Perspectives Historiques et Enjeux Contemporains. Actes du Colloque Tenu à Lyon, 1997, Université Lumière-Lyon 2, Université de Chypre. Lyons: Maison de l’Orient Méditerranéen, pp. 231–39. Ramsbotham, O., H. Miall and T. Woodhouse. 2011. Contemporary Conflict Resolution, 3rd edn. Oxford: Polity Press. Richmond, O.P. 1999. ‘Ethno-Nationalism, Sovereignty and Negotiating Positions in the Cyprus Conflict: Obstacles to a Settlement’, Middle Eastern Studies 35(3): 42–63. Said, E. 1994. Culture and Imperialism. London: Vintage. Sztompka, P. 2000. ‘Cultural Trauma: The Other Face of Social Change’, European Journal of Social Theory 3: 449–66. Zembylas, M., C. Charalambous and P. Charalambous. 2016. Peace Education in a ConflictAffected Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zinn, H. 1970. The Politics of History. Boston: Beacon.

. . . 299 . . .

INDEX 365istanbulhaber, 218, 225n2 61saat.com, 216, 223, 225n2 absence, 6, 40–41, 155, 160, 176, 195, 206, 212, 219, 256, 258, 291 abuse, 50, 242 access, 10–11, 38, 84, 90, 92–93, 102, 109, 117n11, 143, 164–65, 179, 186, 199, 236, 259, 270–71 accusation, 130–31, 134–36, 148–50, 159, 167, 217, 222–24, 255, 259, 278 acoustics, 56–61, 63–65, 67, 70–74 acoustic community, 57–60, 64, 70, 72–74 activism, 85, 183–89, 195–97, 199, 200n3, 297 actor, 16–17, 113, 115, 126, 134–35, 144, 148, 150, 154, 158, 160, 183, 189, 193–94, 213, 243, 248–49, 252–58, 260, 263n7, 293–94, 296–97 adaptation, 78, 84, 213, 233 adversary, 2, 123, 189, 224, 276 advocacy, 8, 47, 50, 103, 124, 270, 295 Aegean, 25, 240 aesthetic, 41, 111 affect, 58–59, 71 affordance, 13, 192–93, 284 Africa, 128, 139, 230, 244n6 Afrika, 128, 130–31, 133, 135. See also Africa agency, 10–11, 13, 83, 100, 107, 109, 114, 131, 151, 158, 160, 185, 192–93, 218, 269 agent, 144, 193, 249, 271, 273, 276–77, 284, 287, 291 aggression, 89, 136, 212, 282–83, 285 agreement, 3, 5–6, 10, 12, 15, 18n3, 27, 42, 46, 93, 125, 135, 137, 140n2, 142–43, 145, 147, 149–56, 158–59, 161n1, 164, 211, 225n1, 246–47, 268–69, 277, 287 Akıncı, Mustafa, 6, 77, 81, 139n2 Akrotiri Sovereign Base Area, 81 Ali, Ihsan, 45–46, 47f

alienation, 107, 190 alignment, 13, 81, 178, 195, 229, 256, 285 ally, 14, 16, 31, 41, 47, 126, 134–36, 138, 189, 214, 216, 220, 279 alternative, 7, 8, 13, 45–46, 50, 82–86, 88, 94, 100, 104, 114, 131, 135, 142, 144, 146, 149, 152, 156, 159–60, 176, 182, 192, 198–99, 228, 234, 253, 255, 260, 273, 280, 283–84, 287, 297 Althusser, Louis, 143 ambiguity, 155, 197, 224 America, 69, 132, 136, 167 Anatolia, 25, 212 Anastasiades, Nicos, 6, 77, 81, 90, 123–25, 130–31, 133–34, 138, 139n2, 145, 255 Anastasiou, Harry, 25, 123, 164, 170 Anderson, Benedict, 7, 166, 206–7, 224 Annan, Kofi, 5, 9, 91, 123–25, 127, 134, 139n1 annexation, 27, 250 annihilation, 129, 146, 147 anonymity, 31, 42, 52n5, 116n9, 149–50, 186, 213, 236 antagonism, 2, 3, 7, 9, 127, 187, 188, 214, 217–18, 221, 224, 239, 272, 279, 281–84 anxiety, 110, 208, 280, 291 apartheid, 230 Apollon Limassol, 205–206, 210–12, 214, 217–20, 223 apparatus, 28, 157, 296 Arab, 85, 189 archbishop, 5, 27, 124 architecture, 30, 79, 80, 91–93, 95, 184 Armenian, 5, 6, 25, 191, 212, 221, 232 army, 6, 28, 30, 38–41, 73, 88, 188–89, 195, 233, 244n5, 290 military, 1–2, 5, 16, 18n1, 27–28, 39, 41–42, 87–89, 124, 188–89, 207–9, 211–12, 216–17, 224, 232–34, 238–42, 243n2, 244n2, 244n6, 249, 282, 295 paramilitary, 5, 28

Index soldier, 28, 38–42, 88, 96, 216, 232, 238–39, 291 arrangement, 102, 125, 199 articulation, 7, 13, 15, 17, 32, 51n2, 65, 78, 80, 86, 112–15, 124, 126, 128–29, 138– 39, 159, 170, 178, 182, 191, 205–6, 209, 213–14, 218, 221, 236–37, 241–43, 249, 251, 272–73, 276–77, 279–80, 282–83 re-articulation, 1, 8, 14, 45, 291, 297 arts, 46, 50, 290 assemblage, 295 Atatürk, Kemal, 46, 49f, 237 Kemalism, 237 Athienou, 45 audience, 16, 82, 85, 94, 101, 115, 116n5, 196, 205, 210, 229, 235–36, 279, 291 austerity, 10–11, 15, 99, 101–3, 110–15, 142, 145, 246, 252, 257, 259–60, 268–71, 273, 274t, 275t, 276, 278–80, 282–84, 286–87, 297 authoritarian, 189, 198, 283 authorship, 17, 29, 75n2, 88, 117n11, 117n12, 155, 165, 168, 183–84, 186, 199, 208, 213, 217, 236, 239, 253, 270, 279, 284, 294, 297 Avgi.gr, 269–71, 273, 274t, 275t, 277, 282, 284, 287n2 Bachelard, Gaston, 79 bailout, 11, 12, 15, 18n3, 102, 142–43, 145, 147, 152, 154, 159, 246, 247–48, 250–56, 259, 263n3, 268–69, 291 bank Bank of Cyprus, 102, 246, 269 banking sector, 10, 101, 148, 150, 156, 159, 257–59 banking system, 12, 142, 151–53, 155, 159, 248, 254, 258 Bundesbank, 251 Central Bank of Cyprus, 149, 155 European Central Bank, ECB, 10, 142, 246, 268 Popular Bank of Cyprus (Laiki Bank), 10, 102, 145, 159, 246–47, 263n2, 269 Barthes, Roland, 229–30, 241–43 battle, 31, 33, 158, 198, 224, 244n5, 294 Bayrak, BRT, 82 Billig, Michael, 126, 136, 140, 205–8, 213, 223 body, 3, 28, 30–31, 38, 41–42, 114, 211, 247, 250, 263n8, 291, 293–94, 296 embodiment, 78, 143, 191 Bourdieu, Pierre, 249, 263n6, 263n7

Bragadino, Marcantonio, 234 bridge, 77–78, 80, 82, 85–90, 92–95, 207, 272, 295 Blue Bridge, 78, 86–89, 94–95 Bridge at Eleftheria Square, 89–93 media bridge, 13, 78, 80–86, 94–95 Bryant, Rebecca, 79, 124, 292 buffer zone, 6, 39, 45–46, 63–64, 68, 72, 75n4, 77, 83–84, 87, 89, 96n1, 96n11, 183, 188–95, 198, 217, 296 Dead Zone, 63–64 Green Line, 6, 13, 56, 63, 75n4, 75n5, 78, 82, 87–92, 94, 96n1, 96n11, 164, 166–67, 169, 183 call to prayer, 64–68, 71, 73 Capital.gr, 269–71, 273, 274t, 275t, 277, 287n2 capitalism, 17, 100, 190, 198, 247–52, 254, 256–58, 261–62, 268, 271–72, 274t, 277, 280, 283–84, 286–87, 296 Carpentier, Nico, 2, 8–9, 13–14, 17, 26, 39, 81, 84–85, 94, 146, 187, 192, 206, 211, 213–14, 217, 272, 293, 297 casualty, 5, 52n5 Catholicism Latins, 6, 25 censorship, 107 chain of difference, 223, 276 chain of equivalence, 214, 217, 221, 223, 273, 276, 278–79, 281–83 childhood, 38f, 65, 69, 71, 238 Christianity, 4, 55, 60, 65–68, 72–73, 232 Christofias, Demetris, 123–25, 130, 134, 145, 148, 150, 159 church, 31–32, 40, 55, 64–66, 68, 70–73, 81, 106, 190, 233 church bell, 55, 65–68, 71–73 citizenship, 3, 6, 15, 38, 85, 87, 94, 101, 103–4, 107, 109–11, 116n10, 117n10, 128, 157, 160, 171, 182–87, 192–99, 205, 231–32, 237–38, 241, 247, 268–69, 272, 276, 285 civil society, 16, 82–83, 85–86, 183, 193 class, 29, 230, 247, 249–50, 279, 280, 282–86 codification, 280 coexistence, 5, 7, 13, 45, 55, 86, 126, 166, 169, 175, 177–78, 183, 242 collaboration, 45, 82–84, 94, 109, 136, 150 colonialism, 4, 11, 16, 27–28, 41, 153, 189, 211, 231, 233, 247, 263n5, 274t, 275t, 278, 280–81, 283, 290 post-colonialism, 189, 197

. . . 301 . . .

Index communism, 280, 283 anti-communism, 280 community, 4–9, 11–13, 15–16, 25, 27, 29–30, 32, 39–41, 45–47, 50, 55, 57–61, 63–68, 70–74, 75n2, 77–79, 81–82, 84–87, 94–95, 101, 123–27, 129–38, 139n2, 140n2, 163–64, 166, 167, 170, 172, 174, 176–77, 179n1, 182, 189, 191–92, 194, 206–7, 211, 213, 224, 231–33, 237, 239, 263n9, 292, 295 bi-community, 15, 82–85, 124–25, 163, 165, 173, 178, 190–92, 194–95, 198–99, 200n3, 228 inter-community, 4, 18n2, 38, 83, 84–85, 124 condemnation, 104, 146–47, 149–150, 189, 246 conflict, 1–4, 7–9, 11–17, 25, 28, 31, 38–39, 41–42, 45, 50, 55–61, 63–65, 68–74, 75n6, 77, 94, 106–7, 110, 112, 123–27, 134–38, 163, 182–83, 190–92, 198, 209–10, 213, 222, 224, 228, 235, 239, 246–49, 251, 254, 256, 261, 263n6, 290, 292–98 conflict resolution, 2, 77, 137, 294, 297 post-conflict, 2 consensus, 2, 17, 131–32, 137–38, 149, 165, 190, 192, 194, 247–49, 251–52, 256, 261– 62, 271, 274t, 278–80, 282, 284, 286, 297 conspiracy, 221, 235, 240–41, 275t, 279–80 construction, 7, 8, 13–16, 26, 32, 47, 57, 59, 66, 77, 80, 86–88, 91–93, 124–26, 128–29, 143–44, 146–47, 154, 159–60, 164–66, 174–76, 178–79, 187–88, 194–95, 197, 205–7, 210, 213–14, 216–22, 228–29, 231–32, 236–39, 242–43, 248, 251–53, 255, 257, 261, 271, 273, 274t, 275t, 276–77, 279, 283, 286, 295 constructionism, 147, 297 constructivism, 294 consumption, 193, 274t, 275t, 278, 284 context, 1–3, 7, 13, 40, 51n2, 55–56, 58–59, 64, 66, 69, 80, 113, 126, 132, 134, 136– 39, 144, 150, 152, 154, 158, 166, 168, 170, 175, 178, 179n2, 187–88, 193, 195–98, 210, 222, 224, 228, 230, 242, 252, 257, 261, 273, 281–84, 287, 292, 298n1 contingency, 2, 25, 184, 192, 194, 199, 213–14, 221, 272–73, 297 conversation, 3, 79, 88, 135 conversational model, 79 Couldry, Nick, 165–66, 176 coup, 5, 28–29, 124, 209, 212, 291 Crete, 27, 41

crisis, 2–4, 9, 10–11, 13–17, 28, 93, 100, 104–5, 112–15, 142–44, 146–48, 150–51, 154, 157, 159–60, 182, 205–8, 214, 218–19, 223–24, 291 economic crisis, 3, 8–15, 17, 93, 112, 143–45, 147–48, 150, 159–60, 247–54, 256–62, 268–87, 291–92, 296, 298n1 financial crisis, 99, 101–103, 107, 113, 247–48, 251–52 critical discourse analysis, 1, 128, 136, 168, 208 criticism, 1, 17, 85, 92–93, 99–100, 104–115, 128, 132–34, 136, 138, 140, 143, 148, 150, 152, 156–57, 159, 168, 190, 193, 198–99, 208, 240–41, 247, 251–52, 254–57, 259, 261–62, 263n6, 271–72, 280, 283, 294–95 crossing, 6, 13, 15, 64, 69, 81, 85, 88–89, 163–65, 167, 169–74, 176–78 cultural studies, 1, 165 culturalism, 143, 252, 280, 294 culture, 1–4, 8, 12, 14, 16–17, 32, 39, 47, 51, 55–58, 63, 68, 72–74, 80, 83, 85–86, 94, 99, 101, 103, 106–7, 109–11, 113–14, 127–28, 143–44, 146–47, 152, 165, 183–88, 191, 206, 209, 214, 221, 229–31, 237, 251–52, 268–69, 275t, 276, 278–79, 283, 291–95 civic culture, 192–199 Cyprus Broadcasting Corporation, CyBC, 14, 81–83, 99–110, 112–15, 116n5, 116n10, 117nn10–14, 167–69, 173–76, 178, 296 Cypriot, 4–15, 17, 18n2, 25–32, 39–42, 45–46, 50, 52n6, 64, 72, 77, 79, 81–85, 88, 91–92, 94, 100–105, 108, 113–15, 116n5, 123–24, 126–27, 129–30, 133–34, 136, 138, 140, 142–43, 145–53, 155, 156–57, 159–60, 163–64, 166–68, 170–74, 176, 187–91, 195, 197–99, 208, 211, 213, 217–18, 222, 224, 225n4, 228, 231–33, 237, 239–40, 246–48, 252–62, 263n3, 268–71, 273–79, 281–84, 286, 290–93, 296–97, 298n1 Cypriotism, 7, 45 Cypriotness, 86, 126, 225n4, 237, 239, 242 Greek-Cypriot, 4–7, 9, 14–16, 18n2, 25, 27–30, 38–42, 45–46, 50, 60–61, 63–64, 69–70, 72, 75n6, 77, 79, 82–84, 87–89, 96n11, 123–24, 125–33, 135–38, 139n2, 143, 145–46, 163–64, 166–67, 169–78,

. . . 302 . . .

Index 179nn1–2, 180n5, 182, 186, 188, 190–91, 198–99, 211–12, 217, 223–24, 225n4, 231–32, 237, 242, 244n2, 279, 292, 296–97 non-Cypriot, 6, 291 Turkish-Cypriot, 4–7, 9, 16, 18n2, 25, 27–30, 38–39, 41, 45–46, 50, 52n16, 60–61, 63, 70–72, 77, 81, 83–84, 87–89, 91, 96n11, 123–38, 140n2, 163–64, 166–67, 169–77, 179n1, 180n4, 182–83, 186, 188, 190, 198, 208, 211, 225n4, 228–29, 231–32, 235–40, 242, 243n2, 244n2, 292, 296 Cyprus Community Media Centre, CCMC, 84–85 Cyprus Problem, 3–4, 7–9, 12, 17, 83–85, 124–25, 131, 135, 140, 146, 164, 166–69, 172–73, 179n2, 208, 210, 213, 224, 229, 240, 292, 296–97 Dahlgren, Peter, 15, 101, 183–84, 186–87, 192 Dardot, Pierre, 268, 271, 280, 283, 285 death, 5, 28, 30–31, 39–42, 45–46, 48f, 83, 149, 207–9, 229, 234–35, 244n4, 255, 294 debate, 99, 127, 137, 184, 190, 194, 198, 206, 230, 257, 259, 269 decision-making, 10, 32, 41–42, 85, 88, 94, 100, 104, 110, 112, 114, 142, 152–57, 159– 60, 166, 169, 208, 222, 232, 246, 249–50, 252–53, 256–57, 260–62, 263n8 co-decision, 250 decline, 114 Deleuze, Gilles, 176, 287 deliberation, 101, 105, 107, 111 democracy, 2, 29, 115, 183–84, 192–96, 224, 250, 254, 269, 272, 285 anti-democratic, 184 participatory democracy, 85 Democratic Party, DIKO, 133, 145 Democratic Rally, DISY, 132, 145, 167, 180n7 demonization, 8, 14, 194 Denktas¸, Rauf, 87, 123, 167, 169–73, 177, 180n4, 239 desire, 12, 72, 79, 85, 117n10, 164, 171, 175, 177, 190, 211, 215 destabilization, 39, 213–14, 272 destruction, 149, 151–52, 210, 228, 233, 259–60, 280, 278, 282, 283, 286, 296 determinism, 197 overdetermination, 74, 187, 191, 197

Dhekelia Sovereign Base Area, 81 dialect, 237–38, 243 dialogue, 83, 84, 190, 196, 198, 297 diaspora, 85, 116n5 dichotomy, 14, 126–27, 132, 188, 196, 214 diplomacy, 81, 123, 183 discourse, 1–2, 4, 6–7, 12–17, 25, 26, 30, 32–33, 39, 41–42, 45–47, 50, 51n2, 72–73, 79, 84–86, 99–103, 105, 112, 114–15, 124–29, 131, 135–36, 139–40, 142–49, 151–54, 159–60, 163–73, 175–79, 182, 187–92, 194–97, 205–210, 212, 213–14, 228–30, 232, 236, 238–43, 244n2, 249–50, 252–53, 268, 271–85, 287, 294–98 discourse theory, 1, 26, 187, 206, 213, 271–73, 285 discourse-as-representation, 13 discourse-material analysis, DMA, 26 discursive struggle, 191, 273, 297 inter-discursive, 281 discreditation, 103, 129–31, 142, 284 discrimination, 126, 166, 231, 294 dislocation, 13, 50, 214, 272, 297 disruption, 2, 9, 13, 15, 50, 93, 100, 228, 238, 278, 295, 297 diversity, 46–47, 85, 101, 111, 190, 231, 233, 238, 296 division, 2–6, 8–9, 12–16, 27, 29, 39, 46, 50, 56, 60, 63, 65–66, 68–70, 72–74, 75n4, 77–79, 81, 84–86, 88–89, 94–95, 127, 155, 166, 178, 182, 187–91, 193–96, 199–209, 211–12, 223, 228–29, 232, 234, 238, 242, 244n2, 261, 263n1, 268, 279, 294, 295 domination, 7, 8, 13–15, 26–27, 29, 31, 46, 50, 57, 60, 64, 68–69, 101, 127, 131, 133, 135, 139, 143–44, 154, 163–65, 168, 173, 177, 187, 199, 212–13, 229–31, 236–37, 244n2, 248, 250–51, 253–54, 262, 282, 284, 292, 295, 297 Doudaki, Vaia, 8, 9, 11, 15, 81, 84, 94, 142–44, 146, 148, 150–51, 154–55, 159, 251, 252–53, 269, 296 ecology, 3, 80 Economic and Financial Affairs Council, ECOFIN, 250, 263n8 education, 32, 47, 83, 114, 174, 189, 292 Egypt, 18n4, 61, 70, 244n6 election, 102, 123, 125, 145, 158, 200n2, 255, 269–71, 283–84 elimination, 29, 89, 109, 237–39

. . . 303 . . .

Index elite, 7–8, 12, 16, 27, 29, 103, 113, 127, 132, 137–39, 142–45, 150, 154, 159–60, 164–65, 168, 178–79, 182, 187, 189, 209, 247, 282, 286, 297 emotion, 58–59, 71–73, 78, 80, 184 Empire, 27, 183, 210, 217, 221, 231, 233, 280 empowerment, 184, 193, 196 disempowerment, 59, 147 enactment, 31, 100, 106, 142, 249–50 enclave, 28 enemy, 9, 14, 16, 30, 41, 45, 77, 129, 134, 136, 138, 175, 205, 208, 210, 214, 216–18, 223–24, 239, 294–95, 297 enmity, 197 other-enemy, 239 radical difference of the enemy, 295 engagement, 3, 16, 85, 94, 101, 106, 109, 125, 131, 134, 182–85, 187, 189, 192–93, 196, 198, 224, 297 enjoyment, 25, 72, 144, 213, 253, 259 enosis, 4–5, 27, 29, 32, 124, 127, 211–12, 231–32 entanglement, 12, 26, 195 entertainment, 114, 209 EOKA, 4–5, 27–32, 39, 52n5, 211, 290–91 equality, 194, 221 inequality, 109, 111, 168, 195, 252, 262, 263n6, 284, 286, 293 essentialism, 279, 281 ethics, 50, 134, 152, 159, 186, 224, 236, 250 ethnicity, 2, 5, 7, 25, 29, 50, 56–60, 63, 71–73, 123, 152, 188, 190–91, 198–99, 206, 215, 221, 223, 229, 231–32, 263n1, 293 ethnic autism, 50 ethnography, 1, 26, 51n3, 60–61, 68, 77 Euro, 151, 260, 271 Europa League, 205, 210–12, 215, 223 Europe, 8, 10, 11, 42, 69, 85, 92, 99, 100, 112, 134, 145, 148, 153, 158, 208, 210–11, 214–15, 220–24, 246, 248–56, 259, 261, 263n9, 268–69, 274t, 276–77, 279–80, 284, 286, 291 European Union, EU, 5, 10, 83, 91–93, 99, 102, 105, 113, 126, 134–36, 142, 150, 152, 167, 170, 211, 247–52, 254, 256, 261–62, 263nn8–9, 270, 273, 274t, 275t, 278–79, 280–83, 285–86, 287n3, 291 Euroscepticism, 17, 247–48, 253, 259, 262 Eurozone, 156–57, 246, 248, 251–52, 255–57, 258, 260–61, 271–72, 274t, 275t, 277–78, 282, 283, 295 European Commission, 10, 11, 85, 246, 268

European Financial Stability Facility, EFSF, 145 European Monetary Union, EMU, 247–51, 254–56, 258–59, 261–62, 277–78, 282 European Stability Mechanism, ESM, 246, 269, 287 event, 2, 5, 15–16, 41, 50, 57, 66–67, 70, 78–79, 82–83, 91, 106, 124, 132, 143, 146, 153, 159, 163–65, 169–79, 183, 185–86, 205–9, 212–15, 217–18, 221, 223, 241–43, 247, 249, 251, 253, 258, 269, 279, 282, 287, 292, 293, 297 everyday life, 13, 33, 58, 60, 61, 64–65, 68–74, 92, 192, 205 evil, 14, 30, 41, 107, 131, 138, 175, 214, 218, 224, 229, 242, 259 expert, 155–58, 270, 280–81, 283, 286 expertise, 106, 108, 146, 147t, 154–56 extremism, 277, 281 Facebook, 182–88, 190–96, 198, 200n3, 218, 235 Fairclough, Norman, 128, 143–44, 284, 287 Famagusta, 38, 84, 228, 232–34, 236 Fanatik, 213, 216–19, 221, 225n2 fantasy, 221, 223–24, 228, 230–31, 238, 242 federation, 5, 123–25, 128, 134, 139, 149 Filipinos, 25 Fiske, John, 229–30, 241 flag, 36f, 206, 212, 215–20, 223–24 football, 16, 205–7, 209–11, 214, 216–17, 221–24, 296 foreigner, 70–71, 75, 83, 134, 154, 240, 257, 282 Fotomaç, 213, 218, 222–23, 225n2 Fotospor, 219, 225n2 frame, 15, 40, 50, 80, 87, 114, 123, 125, 127, 131, 142, 149, 155–56, 160, 164, 182–83, 186–87, 189–90, 192–97, 198, 206, 223, 241, 252, 254, 268, 272–73, 276, 280, 283, 285, 287, 293, 296–97 France, 85, 234, 240, 249, 251, 258 freedom, 30–32, 37, 92f, 155, 166, 173 friendship, 41, 45, 171, 174, 189, 207, 218, 295 Galtung, Johan, 2, 14, 293–94 gender, 3, 207, 240 genocide, 221 Germany, 17, 85, 153, 248–52, 254–58, 260–62, 275t, 282, 291 globalization, 58, 113, 272, 277, 286 glorification, 215–17 Golden Dawn, 276, 281

. . . 304 . . .

Index governance, 84, 103, 113–14, 124, 196, 252, 282 government, 4–5, 30, 41–42, 50, 81–83, 87–89, 101–2, 104, 111–12, 116n4, 134, 145, 148–50, 152, 155, 157, 158–59, 165, 168, 170–73, 176, 178, 188–89, 208–9, 246–49, 252, 255–59, 269–70, 274t, 275t, 278–79, 282, 284, 287 Gramsci, Antonio, 143, 165, 230, 247, 249–50 Great Britain, 4, 6, 17, 25–28, 30, 41, 52n8, 81, 134–36, 183, 189, 190, 210–11, 231, 233, 240, 247–48, 256, 258–59, 261–62, 274t, 275t, 278–80, 290–91, 296 England, 30, 52n7, 82–83, 85, 185–86, 188, 213, 225n4, 233, 235–36 Greece, 4–7, 10–11, 14, 16–17, 18n3, 25, 27–33, 40–42, 45, 69, 75n2, 82–83, 85, 92, 102, 116n4, 124, 126, 129, 134–36, 146, 149, 150, 152, 154, 185–86, 188–89, 191, 206–8, 210–12, 214, 216–24, 225n1, 225n4, 231, 238–40, 244n2, 252, 256, 260, 268–71, 273, 274t, 275t, 276–87, 291, 296–97 Greekness, 223 Greek-Turkish, 27, 45 Grivas, Georgios, 27–33, 38f, 291 Guardian/Observer, 77, 248, 253–57, 260 Guattari, Félix, 176, 287 guerrilla, 27 Haberts, 216, 218, 225n2 Haberturk, 218, 225n2 habitus, 278 Hadid, Zaha, 91–93 haircut, 10, 15, 102, 142, 145, 148, 152, 154, 156–57, 159, 161n1, 246–47, 252–53, 255–62, 269 Halkın Sesi, 128, 135 Hall, Stuart, 14, 126, 136, 143–44, 154, 165, 251, 273, 279 Haravgi, 128–29, 132–34, 167, 169–73 Harvey, David, 257, 269, 271–72, 283–84 hegemony, 7, 13–15, 17, 25, 30, 32–33, 41–42, 45, 47, 50, 51n2, 85, 106, 139, 142–44, 159–60, 164–65, 170, 175, 178–79, 187, 192, 194–96, 199, 213–14, 228–30, 237, 238, 240–43, 247–54, 256–57, 261–62, 268, 270, 272–73, 276, 280, 282–87, 296–97 counter-hegemony, 17, 42, 45–46, 142, 187, 194, 196–97, 230, 262, 268, 270, 273, 283, 285, 287, 292, 297

heroism, 14, 25, 29–32, 41, 45–47, 50, 153, 207, 209, 213, 224, 239, 241–42 heterogeneity, 6–7, 58 hierarchy, 31, 80, 109, 114, 195, 217, 286 non-hierarchical, 26, 295 history, 3–4, 8, 13–17, 25–26, 29, 41, 50, 52n5, 57–58, 67, 69, 73, 77, 79, 82, 85, 89–90, 92–95, 104, 113, 152–53, 165–66, 168, 170, 178, 182–83, 190–95, 199, 205–10, 213, 217, 219, 221–22, 224, 229–30, 235–36, 241–43, 268, 270, 274t, 276–78, 282, 285, 290–92 homogeneity, 4, 7, 28–29, 58, 72, 125, 137, 139, 190, 228–29, 231, 238, 242–43 homogenization, 206, 230–31, 238 hostility, 148, 154, 274t, 284 hourglass model, 294 humanization, dehumanization, 2, 152, 158, 175 humanity, 297 Hürriyet, 208, 213, 221, 225n2 identity, 2–4, 6–8, 11, 13–15, 45, 55, 57, 66, 69–70, 72–73, 78–79, 83, 93, 101, 124–29, 136–39, 153, 166, 184, 186–93, 195–99, 205, 207, 213–19, 221, 223–24, 228–29, 231–33, 236–40, 242–43, 275t, 276, 278–79, 282–83, 285–86, 296–97 identification, 18n2, 40–42, 57, 81, 100, 126–29, 132, 134–36, 138, 145–46, 154, 159, 166, 178, 187, 189, 196, 207, 214, 218, 236, 250, 272, 276, 287, 296 ideology, 3, 6–8, 13–14, 16, 50, 100, 114, 130, 133, 137–39, 143–44, 146–47, 159– 60, 165, 167, 170, 173, 188, 190, 197–98, 205–6, 213–14, 217, 224, 229–32, 239, 241–42, 248–53, 268, 271–72, 276, 282, 285, 296 Illuminati, 229, 241 imperialism, 189, 191, 232, 252 inclusion, 6, 60, 92, 106, 110, 128, 143, 168, 188, 198, 229, 231, 283 independence, 4, 7, 25, 27–31, 41, 83–85, 101, 103, 105–7, 127–28, 135, 138, 155, 157–58, 170, 183, 211, 218, 233, 290 individualism, 30, 101, 184, 193, 294 institutional sourcing, 146, 147f, 150, 154–55 intelligibility, 32, 297 interaction, 3, 6, 8, 12–13, 17, 59, 61, 73, 79–81, 83, 86–87, 95, 110, 167, 184, 192, 232, 297–98 International Monetary Fund, IMF, 10, 99, 102, 113, 142, 150, 246, 256, 262, 268, 278

. . . 305 . . .

Index Internethavadis, 218, 225n2 intervention, 45, 50, 124, 199, 211, 216, 220, 229, 232, 238, 240–42, 243n2, 249, 259, 272, 277 interventionism, 103–7, 113–14 invasion, 5, 18n1, 29, 38–39, 46, 92, 153, 163, 182–83, 190, 217, 229, 233–34, 240–41, 244n2, 274t, 275t, 279 investment, 78, 112, 114, 159, 209, 255, 260, 295 invitation, 13, 18n3, 26, 32–33, 50, 295 irony, 89, 241, 282, 292 irreconcilability, 169, 297 Islam, 65–67, 223, 232, 235, 240 Jabri, Vivienne, 14, 294 journalism, 8–9, 14, 16–17, 83, 85, 95, 100–1, 103–4, 107, 109–12, 114–15, 137, 143, 145–46, 148, 150–56, 158, 177, 209, 224, 271 justice, 1, 32, 34f, 41, 103, 190, 194, 221, 272 injustice, 195, 286 just, 14, 152, 214, 216, 218, 282 Justice and Development Party, AKP, 208, 241 Kathimerini.gr, 269–71, 273, 274t, 275t, 276, 278–80, 287n2 Kıbrıs, 128 knot, 2, 17, 26, 295, 297–98 discursive-material knot, 17, 295 knowledge, 61, 83, 101, 106, 143, 152, 155, 157, 164–65, 179, 192–94, 294 Kouroussis, Nikos, 46–47, 51n5 Kyrenia, 38, 84 Lacan, Jacques, 176 Laclau, Ernesto, 13, 26, 32, 50, 143–44, 187, 206, 213–14, 221, 249, 271–73, 276, 279, 282 language, 55, 59, 65, 69, 82, 84–85, 127–28, 152–53, 188–89, 198, 209–10, 217, 225n4, 236–38, 242–43, 272 linguistic, 85, 232, 237, 277 Larnaca, 45, 83–84 Latour, Bruno, 13 Laval, Christian, 268, 271, 280, 283, 285 leader, 5, 15, 30–31, 46, 77, 81, 88, 123–25, 128–33, 135–39, 140n2, 157, 167, 169–70, 180n4, 195, 223, 238, 252, 275t, 276, 279, 281, 285, 291 leadership, 87, 123, 129, 165, 171–72, 232, 238, 249, 257 Ledra Palace, 84

Ledra Street, 87, 96n11, 186t legitimacy, 103, 108, 112–14, 116n10, 129–30, 142, 144, 155, 159, 244n2 liberalism, 128, 253, 268, 270–71, 273, 274t, 275t, 276–83, 285–87 neoliberalism, 11, 14–15, 100–2, 104, 112–15, 148–49, 151, 160, 247, 252–53, 257, 262, 268, 270–72, 274t, 275t, 277–87 Limassol, 3, 31–32, 206, 220, 290–91 localism, 89 Lusignan (Guy of), 4, 25, 228–30, 234–37, 240–41 machine, 8, 31, 47, 63, 65, 69 mainstream, 8, 15, 17, 81–83, 86, 94, 103, 123, 127–28, 142–44, 146, 149–50, 154, 159, 163, 166, 187, 189, 197, 247–48, 251, 253, 268, 271, 277–78, 284–85, 297 Makarios, 5, 27–28, 30, 45, 124, 180n3 management, 94, 102–6, 108–10, 112, 114, 116n9, 248, 252, 258, 262, 279, 286 marginalization, 79, 144, 147, 157, 160, 193, 197–98, 250 market, 10–11, 15, 100–1, 112, 145, 158, 248, 250–52, 257–59, 262, 263n9, 269–70, 280, 282, 284–85, 290 Maronites, 6, 25, 166, 191 marriage, 83, 234, 240 masculinity, 207, 209, 222, 229 material, 1–3, 7, 11–14, 17, 26, 32, 42, 45, 50, 66, 68, 78, 80, 92, 104–5, 109, 138, 142, 167–68, 178, 185–86, 193, 195, 213, 236, 263n6, 293–98 materialism, 272 materiality, 3, 12–14, 26, 32, 50, 92, 295–96 materialization, 12–13, 30, 32–33, 38–40, 50 McLuhan, Marshall, 57, 80 meaning, 3, 8, 25–26, 55–56, 65, 67, 71–74, 75n4, 78, 89, 107, 126, 154, 165, 169, 176, 187, 199, 209, 213, 230, 235, 248, 252, 272–73, 276–77, 292, 294–96 media, 1, 3, 7–9, 13–17, 57, 65, 78–86, 89, 93–95, 96n10, 99–106, 109–10, 112–15, 123–29, 131–35, 137–38, 142–50, 153, 158–60, 163–70, 172–74, 176–79, 184–86, 192–93, 198–99, 205–10, 214, 218–19, 221, 223–24, 225n2, 235–36, 246–48, 251–53, 261–62, 268–71, 273–86, 291, 295–97 alternative media, 8, 13, 86, 146 commercial media, 101, 113

. . . 306 . . .

Index community media, 81, 84, 94 mainstream media, 8, 15, 17, 81, 83, 86, 142–44, 146, 149–50, 154, 159, 163, 166, 187, 189, 247, 251, 253 public service broadcasting, 11, 14, 99–103, 106–10, 112–15, 168, 178. See also CyBC Media Collective, 35–33, 85 media ecology, 80, 86, 95 mediated centre, 163–68, 170, 173, 176–79 mediation, 1, 7–8, 15, 95, 124, 163–64, 168, 174 Mediterranean, 4, 8, 25, 103, 125, 183, 233, 240, 255 Medyatrabzon, 218, 220, 225n2 membership, 15, 29, 45, 58–60, 63, 70, 73, 103, 136, 148, 190, 197, 211, 247, 251, 254, 260–62, 270, 274t, 275t, 277 memorandum, 148, 153, 161n1, 274, 278–79 memorial, 25–26, 28, 30–33, 40–41, 45, 50, 88, 292, 295 memory, 17, 57, 59, 78–79, 82, 89, 93–95, 175, 192, 279, 292 memorialization, 32, 290 methodology, 60–61, 127, 167, 182, 185, 253, 297 Michael, Michalis Stavrou, 5, 7, 27–28, 123, 125, 233, 291 migration, 3, 6, 29, 231 immigrant, 3, 6, 85, 88, 167, 188, 195 Milliyet, 215–16, 219, 221, 225n2 minority, 25, 51n1, 85, 111, 231, 237 mismanagement, 101, 103, 108, 110, 114, 258 Mitchell, Thomas, 79, 93–95 mobilization, 124, 126, 136, 196–97, 199, 290 moralization, 146–47, 177 Morphou, 38, 84 motherland, 4, 7, 14, 82, 126, 135, 231–32, 237–39, 278–79, 292 Mouffe, Chantal, 2, 7, 13, 26, 50, 143–44, 187, 206, 213–14, 217, 221, 224, 249–50, 271–73, 276, 279, 282 movement, 15, 25, 64, 83, 85, 87, 89–90, 93, 163–73, 176, 182–87, 190–99, 200n3, 238–39, 272, 285, 297 Movement for Social Democracy, EDEK, 180n5 multiculturalism, 7, 69 multiplicity, 1, 3, 7, 25, 30, 198, 238 museum, 30–31, 33 Muslim, 4, 6, 55, 60, 66–68, 72–73, 224, 231–32, 240–41, 244nn5–6 MYCYradio, 85

mystification, 9, 146–47, 151, 241 myth, 7, 17, 29, 108, 164–66, 169, 173, 176–79, 215, 228–30, 232–34, 236–37, 240–43, 292 counter-myth, 229–30, 236, 242 nation, 7–8, 25, 43, 96n2, 126, 137–38, 152–53, 170, 188, 205–8, 210, 215–17, 224, 231–32, 238, 242, 250, 254, 261, 282, 293, 295–96 nation-state, 8 National Popular Front, ELAM, 189, 200n2 nationalism, 4–5, 7–8, 13, 16–17, 29, 32, 45–46, 73, 82, 85, 89, 123–24, 127–28, 130, 132, 138–39, 166, 189, 197, 205–10, 212, 219, 221, 223–24, 228–32, 236–42, 243n2, 248, 269, 290, 296 banal nationalism, 16, 205–208, 214, 223–24 transnational, 197, 247, 250, 286 naturalization, 143, 146–47, 150, 159, 168, 230, 241–43, 251–52, 254, 257, 262 negotiation, 5–6, 10, 12, 114, 124–25, 128–39, 140n2, 142, 145, 150, 153, 156, 158–59, 172, 183, 211, 233, 246, 248, 252, 282, 287, 299 neighbour, 40, 63–64, 68, 75n3, 77, 83, 170 neutrality, 73, 143, 146, 154, 156, 256, 292 news, 9, 16, 75, 83, 100, 103, 105–7, 109, 111, 115–16, 123–24, 127–28, 131, 133, 137, 140, 143, 145–61, 166–67, 170–71, 173, 178, 206–8, 210, 212–19, 221, 223– 25, 247–48, 253, 255, 269–71, 287, 296 newspaper, 8, 79, 81, 83, 105, 127–39, 143, 145, 150, 155–56, 159–61, 167, 169–73, 177–80, 207–8, 210, 213, 253–55, 257–58, 260–62, 270–71, 296–97 newsworthy, 16, 253 Nicosia, 13, 28, 32, 39, 41, 46–47, 56, 60–61, 63–64, 66–69, 72–74, 77–78, 82–84, 86–90, 92–94, 140, 150, 183, 198, 260, 279, 290, 295 nodal point, 32, 187, 189, 197, 213, 282, 286 non-governmental organization, 83 normalization, 257 norms, 15, 144, 152, 165, 197, 271, 296 nostalgia, 79, 95 objectification, 157 objectivation, 143, 146, 154, 159 objectivity, 9, 128, 150, 154–55, 157, 164, 171, 183, 194, 208, 214, 239, 253, 268, 271, 273

. . . 307 . . .

Index Occupy the Buffer Zone, OBZ, 15, 182–90, 192–99, 297 oligarch, 260 omission, 146–49 ontology, 154, 272 operationalization, 104, 293 opposition, 5, 8, 13, 27, 29, 32, 45, 55, 58, 107, 124–25, 132–34, 136, 138, 144, 187, 208, 239, 242, 251, 271, 276, 278–84 oppression, 5, 209, 232, 280 ordinary people, 205 organization, 1–2, 5, 9, 11–12, 14, 27–28, 30, 45, 81, 84, 101–2, 104, 108–12, 114–15, 133, 137, 144, 195, 241, 280, 293, 295–97 organizational culture, 114 orthodox, 4, 6, 31, 64, 206, 223, 232–33 other, 3–4, 6–9, 12–16, 25, 27–28, 30, 32, 39–40, 45, 56–58, 60, 63–73, 75, 78–79, 81–82, 84–85, 88–90, 94, 103, 105–16, 124–38, 142–44, 146, 148–52, 155–58, 163, 165–68, 170–71, 173–76, 178–79, 184–85, 187–89, 192–200, 206–8, 211, 214–15, 217–24, 225n3, 230, 232, 234, 237–40, 243, 244n5, 248–49, 251–52, 257–61, 270–71, 273, 279–84, 291, 293–97 othering, 129, 136, 138–39, 187 otherness, 15 Ottoman Empire, 4, 25, 27, 183, 210, 216–17, 221, 228, 231–32, 234–35, 275, 280, 290 ownership, 81, 103, 112, 190, 197, 239, 249 property, 190, 257 pain, 25, 27, 40, 42, 64, 112, 152, 257, 260 Papadakis, Yiannis, 4–5, 46, 50, 89, 124, 126, 232, 292 Papadopoulos, Tassos, 88, 123, 133 Paphos, 33, 39, 45–46, 63–64, 84 parliament, 103, 105–6, 145, 149, 152, 154, 157, 160, 247, 271, 279 participation, 1, 3, 7, 9, 11, 13, 16, 25–26, 32, 50, 56, 59–61, 64–65, 67, 73, 75, 77–79, 82–83, 85, 88, 92, 94, 101, 103, 107, 109, 114–16, 129, 143–44, 148, 160, 168, 170, 182–88, 192–99, 200n3, 206, 210, 213–15, 224, 230–31, 233, 236, 242, 247, 250, 256, 269, 271, 283–84, 287, 293, 295–98 maximalist participation, 114 non-participation, 94

partition, 4, 6, 27, 63, 96n1, 124, 127, 211, 223, 232 partnership, 271 patriotism, 134, 152 peace, 5, 7, 9, 28, 38, 45, 47, 55, 63, 69, 71, 83–84, 89, 123, 127, 132, 135, 164, 177, 183, 189, 190–91, 197, 211, 218, 224, 229, 232–33, 239, 242, 243n2, 293–94, 296–97 peace talks, 123 peace-building, 83, 294 peace-keeping, 28, 84, 89, 233 people, 2, 7, 9, 12, 47, 51n5, 55–58, 65, 68–71, 73–75, 78–80, 84–86, 88, 92–94, 106–10, 112–13, 135, 143, 152, 155, 163–64, 166–67, 172, 174, 176, 178, 183, 188–89, 191–93, 195, 198, 209, 213, 220, 222, 225n4, 231–32, 235, 237–39, 255, 257, 260, 272, 274–76, 279–80, 282–83, 286 perpetratorship, 239 phantasy, 223, 228, 231, 238, 242 Phileleftheros, 127, 129, 131–36, 143, 145, 148–49, 151, 154, 156, 158–59, 167, 169–73, 177, 180n3 photography, 215–16, 219, 290 place, 28, 31–33, 42, 46, 55–61, 65–69, 71–75, 78–80, 85, 92–93, 95, 105–6, 114, 124, 127, 132, 135, 166, 175, 185, 193, 206–7, 221, 234–35, 268, 281, 294 platform, 85, 103, 109, 114, 117n12, 133, 137 pluralism, 103, 191 plurality, 8 polarisation, 103, 137–38, 235 police, 28, 195, 200n3, 280 policy, 4, 6, 12, 15–16, 29, 85, 99, 101–4, 107, 112–15, 123, 128, 130–31, 133–34, 136, 142, 148, 150–52, 157–60, 188, 191, 205, 208, 231, 248, 250, 252, 254, 257, 259, 268, 270–71, 277, 282, 284–85, 287 political, 1–4, 6–9, 12–16, 27, 29, 33, 39, 46, 50, 63, 73, 78, 81–82, 85–86, 90–91, 94–95, 99, 101–8, 113–15, 123, 125–29, 131–34, 137–39, 144–45, 152, 156, 159–60, 164–65, 168, 170, 178–79, 180n3, 182–85, 187, 189, 191–99, 200n2–3, 206, 208–9, 230–33, 242, 247–50, 253, 256–57, 262, 263n6, 268–77, 279, 281, 283–85, 287, 291–92, 294, 297 political economy, 272, 281 politicization, 126, 286, 292 politics, 2–3, 15, 17, 46, 71, 106, 113, 124, 146, 169, 184–85, 193, 197–99, 207, 237, 252, 262, 271, 275, 291–92, 297–98

. . . 308 . . .

Index geopolitical, 256 politician, 45, 87, 88, 103–5, 107, 110, 113, 115, 127, 156, 173–74, 178, 208, 255, 268–69, 274, 276, 281 Politis, 83, 128–29, 132–34, 143, 145, 149–50, 152–57, 159 popular, 82, 104, 143, 206, 209, 223, 233, 235, 248, 269, 271, 280, 282–83 population, 4–6, 11, 25, 27, 63, 68, 90, 94, 96n10, 183, 188–89, 209, 211, 221–22, 225n1, 229, 231, 233, 241, 244n2 populism, 280, 286 postmodernism, 299 poststructuralism, 176, 287, 294–95 power, 2, 7–8, 17, 26, 50, 66–67, 81, 107, 110, 138–39, 143–44, 146, 151–52, 154–55, 158, 165, 168, 176, 183, 188–89, 193, 199, 208, 212–13, 223, 228, 241–42, 247–49, 251, 255–57, 262, 263n9, 269, 276–77, 280, 282, 293 power struggle, 2, 189 powerlessness, 158 practice, 1–4, 7, 12–17, 30, 52n8, 61, 65, 71–72, 78, 84, 93, 100, 106, 108–9, 111, 113–15, 124, 128–31, 137, 144, 147–48, 150, 152, 155, 158, 165, 168, 185–86, 192, 195–96, 205, 213–14, 231, 236, 238, 251, 261–62, 268, 272, 294, 296–97 signifying practice, 66, 296 prerequisite, 132, 148 president, 83, 88, 124, 130, 133–34, 149, 180n3, 239, 255, 291 primitiveness, 229, 237 primordialism, 205–6 prison, 28, 39 privilege, 15, 32, 50, 57, 104, 110, 142–44, 150, 154, 164–65, 179, 213, 253 professionalism, 113, 146 professional, 9, 16, 72, 99, 104–5, 107, 110, 113–14, 143, 237 Progressive Party of Working People, AKEL, 29, 45, 125, 128, 132, 145, 150, 159, 167, 172, 269, 274, 278–79, 287 propaganda, 82, 165, 188, 194, 207, 236, 238, 284 protection, 5, 13, 15, 26–27, 39, 57, 78, 155, 165–66, 183, 189, 211, 236–38, 247, 254–55, 259–60 protest, 115, 133, 183–86, 190, 198, 274 proximity, 166 psychoanalysis, 176 psychology, 1, 13, 59, 79, 128, 179, 287, 294 public art, 1, 13, 50 punishment, 154, 219

Pyla, 46, 52n5, 166 Pyrga, 40 quantification, 154 race, 231 racism, 189–90, 223–24, 280 radicalism, 45, 113, 128, 130, 170, 197, 272–73, 293, 295 radio, 65, 67, 79, 81–85, 109, 111, 113, 116n5 Radio Astra, 84 Radio Potamia, 83 Radio Pyrgos, 84 Radyo Mayıs, 84–85 rapprochement, 13, 197 ratings, 116n5 reception, 136, 228 reciprocity, 182 recognition, 6, 8, 11, 29, 39, 40, 47, 51n1, 65, 79, 81, 105, 124, 129, 144, 152, 167, 170–72, 183, 189, 191, 211, 224, 239, 249, 262, 263n1, 263n7, 273, 277, 292, 296 reconciliation, 47, 89, 134, 138, 140, 189, 196, 236 redistribution, 110, 190, 283–84 referendum, 5, 91, 125, 249 refugee, 28, 29, 195, 291 displacement, 5 reification, 280 religion, 6–7, 25, 47, 51n1, 55, 58, 60, 64–66, 68–74, 173, 206, 215, 223, 225n1, 231–33, 235, 240 representation, 1–2, 4–7, 13–16, 25, 27, 31, 40–42, 45–47, 50, 51n2, 55–56, 59, 63, 74, 78–79, 82, 89–90, 127, 135, 138, 146–47, 164–66, 168, 177, 186, 195, 207, 211–12, 217–18, 220, 222, 231, 249, 251, 255–56, 258, 260–62, 273, 280–81, 285–86, 291–92 self-representation, 16, 130 repression, 106 Republic of Cyprus, RoC, 3–4, 27, 29–30, 87, 129, 142, 145, 149–50, 152, 159, 167, 171–72, 178, 180n7, 200n2–3, 205–6, 210–11, 263n1, 287n1 Republican People’s Party, CHP, 208 Republican Turkish Party, CTP, 125, 128 rereading, 105 resistance, 41, 107, 114, 150, 153, 171, 242, 248, 255, 270, 274–75, 280, 282–83, 285–86, 295 reunification, 5, 12, 134, 139n1, 140, 190 revolution, 212 uprising, 167

. . . 309 . . .

Index rhetoric, 103, 113, 138–39, 191, 208, 232, 237, 252, 274, 281 rigidity, 16, 109, 114 ritual, 280 Rockefeller, 229, 241 Rothschild, 228, 241 Russia, 6, 25, 27, 149, 208, 221, 255, 260, 274, 276 secession, 233 sedimentation, 277 segregation, 163–64, 198 self, 2, 14, 16, 32, 45, 101, 107, 127, 130, 166, 193, 196, 208, 214, 217–20, 239, 252, 257, 279–80, 286, 296–97 semantics, 276, 281 settlement, 124–25, 299 settlers, 6 sexuality, 209 signification, 2–3, 8, 13, 42, 50, 55, 57, 64–66, 68, 71–73, 86, 104, 137, 153, 173, 187, 193, 199, 214, 282, 287, 296 signified, 27, 56, 158, 179, 277 signifier, 13, 214, 277, 279, 282–84 signifying practice, 66, 296 Simerini, 128–29, 132–34, 136, 139, 167, 169–73, 179n2 simplification, 146, 191 Smith, Anthony D., 7, 206, 229, 231, 238, 242 social, the, 2, 14, 128, 144, 147, 176, 193, 213–14, 272–73, 284, 286 socialism, 286 solution, 4–6, 9, 12, 63, 84, 105, 114–15, 123–25, 128, 133, 136, 139, 164, 171–73, 177, 183, 208, 211, 233, 240, 257–58, 274, 276, 278, 283–84 sound, 13, 55–61, 64–75, 295 sound community, 13 soundscape, 56–58, 60, 64–65, 67–68, 70, 72 soundwalk, 60–62, 68 sovereignty, 81, 129, 190, 248, 259, 262, 299 space, 1, 7, 13–14, 16, 32, 41, 45, 56–57, 59–60, 63–66, 67, 69–70, 77–80, 89, 91–95, 127, 150, 165, 174, 182, 184–85, 190, 192–93, 197–99, 200n3, 20910, 228, 253 Spor.mynet, 213, 216–17, 222 Spor.internethaber, 213, 222–23, 225n2 stakeholder, 263n2 state, 2, 4–5, 7, 11–12, 14, 28, 60, 63, 81, 84–85, 99, 102–3, 105–7, 110, 112–13,

124, 129–30, 133–35, 151–52, 157, 164, 166–68, 170–71, 173, 176, 189–90, 195, 197–98, 205, 208, 210–11, 218, 224, 231, 244n2, 244n6, 246–50, 252, 254–57, 259–62, 263n2, 277–82, 294–96 pseudo-state, 174, 244n2 statue, 25–26, 28, 30–33, 40–41, 45–47, 50, 291–92, 295 status-quo, 247 stereotype, 8, 175, 189 structure, 3, 12–13, 32, 51n2, 55–56, 59, 68, 73, 77, 80, 87, 89, 99, 103–4, 106, 108–9, 112, 115, 134, 143, 147, 149, 151, 157–58, 176, 187, 191, 193, 197, 213, 249, 252, 254, 256, 261, 270, 277–78, 281, 286, 291, 293 restructure, 10, 102–3, 112, 148–49, 254, 260, 270–71, 274, 286 struggle, 2, 9, 11–12, 14, 27–32, 41, 104, 107, 113, 129, 171–72, 178, 187–88, 192, 207, 211–12, 224, 230, 249, 268, 273, 275, 287, 292 discursive struggle, 191, 273, 297 subject, 61, 81, 129, 151, 186–88, 191, 195–97, 199, 207, 276, 293 subject position, 187–88, 191, 195–97, 199 subjectivity, 58, 163, 169, 170–71, 194 subversion, 283 suffering, 2, 25, 32, 40–42, 99, 103, 111, 153, 174, 176, 262, 274 superiorization, 262 survival, 103, 282 sustainability, 100–1, 108, 112, 258, 277 symbolic, 28, 40, 42, 47, 65, 68, 71, 73, 77–80, 83, 86–89, 95, 142–43, 146–47, 153, 207, 210, 213–14, 248–51, 254–56, 261–62, 277, 279–80 symbolic annihilation, 146 symbolization, 31, 89, 224 Syria, 109, 244n6, 291 Syriza, 270–71, 273, 280–81, 283–85, 287 tactics, 235, 284 Takaonline, 218, 225n2 taksim, 4, 6, 27, 63, 124, 127, 211, 223, 232 Talat, Mehmet Ali, 87, 125, 130 technology, 3, 65, 67, 69, 72, 80, 85, 95, 100, 109–10, 113, 115, 184, 199, 224, 290, 298 Telegraph, 248, 253, 255, 257–59 television, 79, 81–83, 105–6, 110–11, 116n5, 127, 140, 168–69, 171, 173–74, 176–79, 218

. . . 310 . . .

Index terror, 280, 291 text, 1, 25–26, 45, 52n6, 128, 145–46, 148–49, 151–53, 155–58, 161n1, 167–68, 187, 213, 224, 235–36, 270, 280 threat, 2, 5, 45, 109, 112, 131–32, 138, 144, 151, 189, 208, 218, 223, 235–36, 248, 252, 255, 260–61, 278, 280–82 time, 2, 4–5, 7, 11–15, 17, 25, 29, 31–32, 45–47, 50, 56, 58, 61, 63, 65–67, 69, 77–79, 83–84, 87–88, 91–95, 100, 103–4, 106–7, 109–11, 113, 115, 127, 130–31, 135–37, 139, 143–45, 148, 150, 153, 155, 158, 164, 166–68, 171–73, 175, 178–79, 180n5, 183, 185, 187–91, 195–97, 205, 207–8, 210, 212, 216, 218, 225n1, 229, 233, 238, 240, 242, 247, 254, 257–58, 260, 262, 263n3, 268–69, 272, 276–77, 282, 286, 291, 293–95, 297–98 temporality, 67, 170 togetherness, 4, 231, 238, 295, 297 torture, 52n8 tourism, 33, 65, 69, 88, 102, 233, 274, 278 Trabzonspor, 205–6, 209–12, 214–23 TrabzonsporTV, 215 trace, 56, 60, 139, 210 traitor, 127, 239 transgression, 57 trauma, 2, 39, 41, 183, 293 trivialization, 146–47 troika, 10–11, 15, 17, 142, 145, 147–53, 156, 158–59, 161n1, 246–51, 254–57, 260–62, 268–69, 282, 287 Truax, Barry, 56–58, 72 trust, 103, 114, 158, 190, 193–95, 248, 257 truth, 57, 165, 179 Tuchman, Gaye, 143, 147–48, 158 Turkey, 4–7, 9, 11–12, 14, 16–17, 18n1, 25, 27–30, 38–42, 45–46, 50, 60–61, 63–64, 69–72, 75, 77, 79, 81–85, 87–89, 91, 96n2, 96n11, 123–38, 140, 153, 163–64, 166–67, 169–77, 182–83, 186, 188–91, 195, 198–99, 205–24, 228–43, 274–75, 283, 291–92, 296 Turkishness, 126, 214–16, 221–24, 236–37, 243 Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, TRNC, 6, 11, 29, 39, 81, 124, 129–31, 135, 183, 208–9, 211, 215–16, 233, 239, 244, 263n1 Turkish Resistance Organization, TMT, 28–29, 211

Turkspor, 218, 225n2 Tvxs, 269, 271, 274–75, 287n2 Twitter, 109 Tziaos, 39–40 unification, 14, 58, 191–92, 195, 218, 221, 238 Union of European Football Associations, UEFA, 205–6, 209–12, 214–15, 220, 222–23 United Nations Development Programme, UNDP, 84 United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, UNESCO, 81 United Nations Peace-Keeping Force in Cyprus, UNFICYP, 28 United Nations Security Council, 52 United States of America, USA, 135–36, 191, 272 universality, 1, 230, 277 user-generated content, 16 Van Dijk, Teun, 144, 152 Van Leeuwen, Theo, 146, 152, 154 vandalism, 46 Varosha, 38, 228, 232–35, 240 Venice, 4, 15, 25, 32, 39, 89, 91, 182, 234 victim, 15, 42, 152, 195, 214, 218, 239, 241–42, 255, 258, 260 victimhood, 25, 40–42, 45, 153 violence, 1–4, 16, 28, 45, 124, 126, 200, 209, 211, 214, 219, 224, 241, 249–50, 262, 263n7, 292–94, 298–99 non-violence, 154, 260 visual essay, 26 voice, 7, 45, 50, 64–65, 67, 69, 71, 85, 110, 134, 137, 142, 144, 155, 160, 167, 174, 179n2, 188, 194, 198–99, 214, 292 voluntarism, 109, 134, 283 vulnerability, 46, 50, 81, 113, 193, 255 war, 2, 4, 27, 29–30, 39, 47, 52n6, 55, 63, 133, 136, 197, 206–10, 213, 215–17, 221, 224, 238–41, 280, 282, 290–91, 294, 298 Second World War, 282 weapon, 32, 294 Williams, Raymond, 143, 251 Wodak, Ruth, 126, 128, 146, 273, 285 Yenidüzen, 128, 130 YouTube, 228, 234–36, 242, 243n1

. . . 311 . . .