Chapter Four: Conclusions

 

 

I Group-consciousness amongst Greek-Cypriots

II Theoretical considerations

III A point for participant observation

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ content | chapter 4 ]
Group-consciousness amongst Greek-Cypriots

Greek-Cypriots reason about both Turkish-Cypriots and Turks from mainland Turkey on the basis of the same, culturally shared notions: the family, religion, work, food and the house. Only in respect to the Turks this leads to exclusion while in respect to the Turkish-Cypriots it leads to inclusion. It is precisely those cultural notions which are most relevant to Greek-Cypriots that they base their reasoning about other groups of people upon. On the one hand, the Greek-Cypriots perceive themselves and the Turkish-Cypriots as being one in-group, on the other hand, the opposite is true for the Turks. But the notions on the basis of which both processes of inclu­sion and exclusion are based, are the same ones. Those who attack and violate them through their (alleged) behaviour or menta­lity have to be excluded, those who share or at least respect them are perceived as insiders.

 

From the Greek-Cypriots' point of view, the Turks are the antithesis of every­thing they value themselves. They  constantly attack and violate the Greek-Cypriot notion of culture. Therefore, the Turks are perceived as barbarians/­savages (varvari), primitive and backwards, they are uneducated, uncivilized and non-European, and so on, in short: they are the exact opposite of cultural beings. They embody non-culture. This is, according to many Greek-Cypriots' view, made visible - or rather invisi­ble - by the lack of any cultural trace the Turks have left in Cyprus and elsewhere: The have not left any buildings, monuments or archaological sites worth men­tioning, nor have they contributed any poets, classical writers or philosophers to the world's heritage. The Turks are perceived as anti-cultural not because they are Muslims or because they speak another language or because they are of diffe­rent origin - all of these things they share with the Turkish-Cypriots - or because of any other attribute, but because in the perception of the Greek-Cypriots, they violate precisely those notions which are the epitome of culture for Greek-Cypriots: the notion of the family, of religion, of work, food and of the house. Therefore, the Turks cannot be but outsiders.

 

In contrast, the Turkish-Cypriots are seen by the Greek-Cypriots- with the excep­tion of some young people who lump Turks and Turkish-Cypriots together - to be as educated, civilized, culturally advanced and European as they themselves. The Turkish-Cypriots are perceived as sharing the Greek-Cypriots' basic cultural values of the family, of religion, of work, food and of the house. If they cannot fully share these values - this primarily applies to religion^[92] - they share them par­tially or at least respect them. Therefore, the Turkish-Cypriots belong to the inner side of the boundary erected against outsiders. They belong inside. After all, they are Cypriots.

 

The Turkish-Cypriots are referred to as diki mas - literally: ours - which is the ge­neral term for insiders of all kinds. The Turks, in contrast, are simply called xeni the term used for outsiders in general. The dichotomy between diki mas and xeni in Greece and Cyprus is ubiquitous and can hardly be overemphasized. It is about in- and exclusion and therefore about group-consciousness on many different levels which is further evidence that an analytical separation of ethnicity and other expressions of group-consciousness does make very little sense indeed.

 

The point I want to make is that the processes of constructing group-consciousness rely on the inclusion of those who do not violate one's own cultural values and on the  exclusion of those who do.

 

Of course, these processes work reciprocally: on the one hand, the Turks are be­lieved to violate notions valued by Greek-Cypriots and therefore, they are exclu­ded. On the other hand, once it has been decided - for whatever reason - that the Turks are to be excluded, they are then  alleged to attack Greek-Cypriot values in an effort to legitimize their exclusion. These two processes go hand in hand and fuse into one process of exclusion. The same is true for processes of inclusion.

 

One might argue that the Greek-Cypriots' view of the Turks, the Turkish-Cyp­riots and themselves simply reproduces the official Greek-Cypriot state ideology (as for example Maratheftis does in his unpublished Ph.D thesis, 1989: 54/280). Although this is unfortunately true, I would like to turn the tables and argue that just as much as people internalize what they are told in schools and elsewhere, the officially acknowleged (state and church) ideology ('the Turkish-Cypriots are good, the Turks are bad') makes use, must make use of cul­turally anchored notions in order to be acceptable and persuasive to the bearers of the Greek-Cypriot culture. It is not a one-way process whereby those in power promote a particular ideology and those without merely reproduce it, rather, it is a dialectic relationship between the two. A glance at the book entitled 'I do not forget and I fight' (Den xechno ke agonizume^[93]) which is part of the curriculum of Greek-Cypriot primary schools will make clear just how much the official ideo­logy employs cultural notions such as religion, the family, the concept of 'inside versus outside' and the house. The book is full of references to destroyed holy and ancestral sites, to lost houses and land, to mourning mothers, daughters and wives, supported by effective visual material such as a little boy helplessly holding the photograph of his missing father.

 

 

[ content | chapter 4 ]

Theoretical considerations

 

As explained in Chapter Two, situationalists, following Barth, have broken with the tradition of essentialism. The core of their approach is their insight that there are no objective criteria defining ethnic groups which I prefer to call in-groups. Rather, in-groups are always defined by subjecive criteria regarded significant by the concerned people themselves. Thus, situationalists maintain that boundaries separating one group of people from another are socially constructed and defined. Furthermore, social anthropologists (cf. Elwert 1989, Linnekin & Poyer 1990, Astuti 1995) have shown that not all people with a collective identity think of themselves as an ethnic group linked by blood and descent (which is why to me, the terms 'ethnicity' and 'ethnic group' are misnomers). There are groups of people for whom other criteria such as locality, social class or particular activi­ties are decisive of group membership rather than someone's ethnic background. Thinking in terms of ethnic belonging is only one way of categorizing people and by no means universal. This is a radical change of positions taking into account not only the subjectivity of in-groups, but also their malleability and changeabi­lity. Nevertheless, the focus has remained on particular features . Essentialists as well as situationalists refer to particular markers as the basis of group-consciousness (ethnicity), only that for the essentialists, there is a limited set of such features (or markers or attributes) regarded as objective and naturally dividing the world's ethnic groups, while for situationalists, the list of possible significant markers leading to the construction of in- and outsiders is open-ended and subjective, i.e. negotiated in relation to other groups. However, it is precisely this focus on features  which I have not found to be relevant for the Greek-Cypriots' construction of group-consciousness. To put is simply: essentialists define the relevant features of group-membership out of context while situationalists try to recognize them within their context. But both look for features defining in- and outsiders. However, for the Greek-Cypriots, it is irrelevant whether a person is a Muslim or an Orthodox Christian, it is irrele­vant whether people speak Turkish or Greek and where they originate from. In other words: it is irrelevant what features they have. It is true that, when asked about their own identity, many Greek-Cypriots - particularly those belonging to the hellenocentric camp - would refer to the notion of the ethnos stressing their primordial connection to the ancient Greeks (although historically, this is highly questionable to say the least, cf. Smith 1991. 28-29) of which their language and religion is only the most obvious evidence. But this does not imply that they categorize in- and outsiders along ethnic lines, for they clearly do not.

According to contemporary definitions of an ethnic group, the Greek-Cypriots and the Turkish-Cypriots are clearly not an ethnic group, because they do not share "a myth of common ancestry" (Smith 1991: 21). That it is the perception of common origin which is the crucial aspect of ethnicity (Smith 1991: 22) becomes clear if one scrutinizes Smith's six criteria of an ethnic group (1991: 21). Greek- and Turkish-Cypriots share all of them except "a myth of common ancestry"^[94]. Turkish- and Greek-Cypriots are not regarded as one ethnic group neither by ana­lysts nor by themselves. Nevertheless, Greek-Cypriots feel that they and the Turkish-Cypriots are one in-group with a collective identity different to that of outsiders either from Greece or Turkey. The Greek-Cypriots' sense of ethnicity as Greeks says little about their sense of identity as Cypriots. The Turkish-Cypriots are not just outsiders one gets on well with, but they are considered and classified as insiders (diki mas) by Greek-Cypriots. It is on the basis of their cultural identity and integrity, not on the basis of their ethnicity (which they undoubtedly have) that Greek-Cypriots categorize other groups of people as in- or outsiders. The same may well be true for the Turkish-Cypriots.

Most studies of ethnicity analyze situations of often armed conflict  (such as the 1960s in Cyprus) between two or several so-called ethnic groups when the leaders of the different groups involved legitimize their claims by reference to ethnic be­longing. Reading the academic literature on ethnicity, one would expect, there­fore, to hear Greek-Cypriots say about the Turkish-Cypriots or the Turks: 'They are Muslims, they speak Turkish, they originate from Turkey, therefore, they are outsiders'. Never have I heard anything along these lines. Turkish-Cypriots and Turks are both Muslims, both speak Turkish as their mother tongue and both are descendents of the Ottomans. Nevertheless, the Greek-Cypriots - and I believe the Turkish-Cypriots, too - consider them two distinct, completely incompatible groups. Neither do Greek-Cypriots regard other features such as locality, certain activities or a particular way of subsistence economy as the decisive factor of group membership. Neither objectively nor subjectively discernible similari­ties and differences respectively decide on group membership.

 

I have intended to show that reasoning about other groups of people and the definition of insiders and outsiders is not based on particular features or attri­butes they may have or may lack, but on the evaluation of one's own cultural integrity. It is neither essentialistically nor situationalistically defined features^[95] which decide where boundaries get drawn, it is not any discernible features at all. The boundary is drawn between those who violate or endanger one's own cultu­ral integrity and those who do not.

 

Regardless of what they are, or where they come from or what they do. Both Turkish-Cypriots and Turks are judged on these grounds. Greek-Cypriots reason about them both in relation to their own cultural notions, rather than the others' features or markers. Greek-Cypriots do not judge others as such, but in relation to themselves. In other words, group membership is defined from an ethnocentric point of view. In- and outsiders are defined on the basis of cognitive-emotional evaluations about certain groups of people. Boundaries are the result of relation­ships  between groups of people rather than their respective features or characte­ristics. What Greek-Cypriots are interested in is not what the others are or do, but how these others relate to them. It is the dynamics between two groups of people, not their respective cultural features or attributes which decide about group membership and group conciousness.

 

 

[ content | chapter 4 ]

A point for participant observation

 

I would like to end this conclusion with some methodological considerations. I have so far always talked of notions. By notion I mean a mental concept which is composed of a great number of other mental concepts carrying meaning. Instead of notion, one could say schema. Schema theory has been prominent within cog­nitive anthropology ever since the early 1980s (cf. d'Andrade 1995: 122-149, 246). Because a schema or a notion is a complex, hierarchically built up network of meaning, it is impossible to refer to its full meaning with a few words.

 

"... culture is a great storehouse of schemas, and natural language contains the 'names' of these schemas ..." (d'Andrade 1995: 185)

 

For example, 'the house' is much more than just the house in Cyprus. It embo­dies a lot of culturally learned knowledge. Like its outer walls, 'the house' is only the frame holding its content together. "Every word and sentence is ... surroun­ded by 'fringes' ... The fringes are the stuff poetry is made of" (Schütz 1964: 100-1). Recent cognitive anthropology (cf. Bloch 1991) has evidence that a good part of the knowledge a person acquires is learnt through practice, not through explicit verbal instruction. This is what happens through participant observation and practical immersion into a society and applies to a child as much as to a resear­cher in a foreign society. Both have to build up cultural schemas or notions.

The point I want to make is this: I would not have been able to comprehend what my informants told me about Turkish-Cypriots and Turks, had I not acquired knowledge about Greek-Cypriot culture though immersion into it. The inter­views by themselves  would not have made half as much sense had I not been able to complement them with knowledge of Greek-Cypriot cultural values I gained through participant observation. I would not have understood the full implication of references to the house, to the family and to the other notions I have discussed. Words used in statements only make sense when seen as linguistic labels to a whole mental concept far too complex to be expressed in one word. It is only because I know now what the family, religion, work, food and the house mean for Greek-Cypriot people, that I was able to understand what they told me about in- and outsiders. All of these notions are only touched on by references made in interviews and other statements. But what informants are really talking about are culturally shared notions a foreigner first must learn to grasp. Without knowledge gained through immersion into a culture, the impli­cit, "what goes without saying" (Bloch 1992a), gets lost. Verbal explanations are rather like children's books only giving the outlines of a picture which has to be coloured if the picture is to be fully seen. Without knowledge about appropriate colours, the missing parts cannot be filled in correctly. Just as a child has to learn that a meadow is green and not blue, I had to learn what a house in Cyprus is. Therefore, even if a topic of interest can only be researched through interviewing people - as is the case with the presently non- existent relationship between Turkish- and Greek-Cypriots - participant observation is nevertheless crucial to any understanding of the verbal information given. The explicit can only be comprehended with the help of the implicit. Without immersion into a culture, one can never understand what people mean by what they say.

On the one hand, examples illustrating group membership and group non-membership are only comprehensible on the basis of knowledge about the cul­ture of the people stating them. On the other hand, verbal statements about in- and outsiders highlight culturally relevant notions because they are statements about collective identity.

 

[ content | chapter 4 ]

---