CYPRUS: STUDY POINTS FINGERS AT G/C HISTORY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 NICOSIA 000785

SIPDIS

DEPARTMENT FOR EUR/SE

E.O. 12958: DECL: 10/02/2018
TAGS: PGOV PREL PHUM CY TU
SUBJECT: CYPRUS: STUDY POINTS FINGERS AT G/C HISTORY
EDUCATION

Classified By: Ambassador Frank Urbancic, Reasons 1.4 (b),(d)


1. (SBU) SUMMARY: A recently-published study by a respected
Greek Cypriot academic that criticizes RoC middle school
history instruction has strengthened the case of those G/Cs
who are demanding a curriculum revision similar to that
carried out in the Turkish Cypriot community five years ago.
Should the reformers win out, the altered texts could help
reduce nationalist sentiment prevalent today among Greek
Cypriot youth. END SUMMARY.

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Book Release Throws Gas on Fire
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2. (SBU) Under the auspices of the Peace Research
Institute-Oslo (PRIO),an NGO active on the island,
University of Cyprus professor Yiannis Papadakis on September
25 presented his latest work, "History Education in Divided
Cyprus: A Comparison of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot
Schoolbooks." The timing of its release proved fortuitous.
Just three weeks earlier, RoC Education Minister Andreas
Demetriou had caused a stir in Nicosia with his instruction
to teachers that the overarching aim for the academic year
was to instill a spirit of bi-communal reconciliation and
coexistence. Greek Cypriot nationalists like Archbishop
Chrysostomos II had reacted predictably, claiming the
revisions could threaten Cypriot Hellenism.


3. (U) Papadakis conducted research for his work in 2006,
with the smell of the failed Annan Plan referenda still in
the AIR and the communities on anything but friendly terms.
Up for comparison were middle school texts then (and still)
in use in the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities,
as well as the older T/C tomes, revised and greatly improved
in 2004. He found the older works similar in structure and
presentation, with history presented primarily as a Good
versus Bad, Us versus Them equation. Ethno-centrism
dominated, and the authors gave far greater emphasis to the
histories of mother countries Greece and Turkey than to
Cyprus itself. Inter-communal strife was the norm, while
conversely, intra-communal conflict was papered over, even
the left-right political divide and messy organized labor
strife. There was little mention of the role of women in
society.

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History Began...When?
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4. (U) According to Papadakis, G/C textbooks assert that
Cypriot history commenced with the arrival of the Mycenaeans
three thousand years ago. Cypriot Hellenism plays the role
of protagonist throughout; those periods when the isle was
under foreign occupation (a majority of the last 1500 years)
receive pejorative reference as "-kratia" (-cracy),as in
Frank-kratia, Venetian-kratia, or Turk-kratia. The authors
either lump Turkish Cypriots together with Turks -- a
blood-thirsty, crude race, they allege -- or claim they were
actually converted G/Cs, thus robbing them of a distinct
ethnic identity. Papadakis noted there was little use of the
terms "Greek Cypriot" and "Turkish Cypriot" in referring to
the island residents, the authors preferring simply Greeks
and Turks. Cyprus's official minorities, the Latins,
Armenians, and Maronites, receive short shrift. And the
inter-communal troubles that led to the de facto dissolution
of the bi-communal RoC are barely mentioned at all.


5. (U) Turkish Cypriot schoolbooks in use from 1970 to 2004
read similarly, Papadakis explained, since hard-line
nationalists and former TMT resistance figures had penned
them. A dominant theme throughout was that "we" (T/Cs)
cannot live with "them" (G/Cs). For geographical reasons,
the island historically had identified far more with
Anatolia, 40 miles distant, than with far-off Greece.
History had begun with the arrival of the Ottomans in 1571,
who brought progress and greater freedoms to an undeveloped
backwater. The existing peoples of Cyprus -- "Rum" -- were
not Greeks at all, but rather the results of mixing of the
populations of the island's numerous overlords. Graphic
photos of T/C victims of G/C-committed atrocities pepper the
pages of the old history text, with G/Cs portrayed as
connivers bent on domination and subjugation.

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Political Change Brings Clearer Thinking
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6. (U) The rise to power of the left-wing, pro-solution CTP
brought a successful effort to change the Turkish Cypriot
history curriculum. "Despite certain omissions and
mischaracterizations, the new books represented a root change
in terms of content and methodology," Papadakis argued. In
T/C teachers' hands since September 2004, the volumes
describe both inter-communal cooperation and intra-communal
strife. Civic nationalism, rather than ethnic nationalism,
dominates, with the authors attempting to tie Cypriots to
their land, not their community. Turkish Cypriots received a
distinct identity separate from Turks, and Turkey was no
longer the "mother country." Competing ethnic nationalisms
and the British practice on Cyprus of divide-and-rule lay
behind the 1960s troubles and eventual Turkish intervention,
not just G/C determination to lord over T/Cs. Concluding,
Papadakis claimed that, while the text still gave Greek
Cypriots more blame than Turkish Cypriots for the island's
current state, the work deserved praise and emulation south
of the Green Line.

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Comment
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7. (C) The Embassy will report Septel the role of history
education in shaping young minds, as well as the efforts of
Greek Cypriot education reformers like Andreas Demetriou.
They would seem to face an uphill struggle, not only from
nationalists such as the Archbishop and his allies in the
DIKO, EDEK, and EUROKO parties, but also from Cyprus's potent
teachers unions, some of which are both change-resistant and
ideologically aligned with the aforementioned political
forces. Time is not necessarily on the side of
reunification; anecdotal evidence shows that G/Cs under 30,
90 percent of whom voted against the Annan Plan, are among
the island's hardest-liners.
Urbancic