💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › costis-achniotis-cypriot-consciousness.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 08:20:09. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
➡️ Next capture (2024-06-20)
-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Title: Cypriot Consciousness Author: Costis Achniotis Date: September 1988 Language: en Topics: Cyprus, nationalism, anti-nationalism, decolonization Source: Retrieved on 23rd March 2022 from https://syspirosiatakton.org/cypriot-consciousness/ Notes: Published in Within The Walls, Issue 35, September 1988. The translation of the text was done in the framework of the documentary https://www.facebook.com/tonguefilm/.
Firstly, I clarify that I understand the definition of collective
consciousness (and its contents) not as stable and unchangeable and of
course I do not give it the dimension of a natural order. Collective
consciousness just as any social concept is changeable and follows the
shifting needs of of a society.
This changeability of course is not at all mechanic. The superstructure
can drastically act on social evolution. For example the appearance of
industries shapes the totality of workers that are possible to become
carriers of labor consciousness. Labor consciousness is potentially
common for all nations and can determine the totality of the workers of
the world. Of course, this understanding is macroscopic. Other factors
(individual consciousness) act and shape opposing subtotalities.
For the purpose of this text, I call Cypriot Consciousness, the
consciousness of the Cypriot Independence. Therefore, its carrier is
anyone who understands Cyprus and its people as an independent entity
and strives as a consequence for the protection of the corresponding
state institution, the Independent Cypriot State.
Of course the understanding of Cypriot Independence is basically a
subject that has not been studied neither historically nor
sociologically, nor politically, and this stands for both communities.
And it is entirely natural as since the 50’s the consciousness for
Enosis (Union with Greece[1]) and for taksim (separation[2]) were
entirely dominant. Regardless of the acceptance of this so-called
Independence in 1960, the governing teams of both communities were (or
were acting like) for Enosis or for taksim. Therefore only this version
of history was projected with its corresponding ideological response. It
is indicative how misguiding history is in Greek-Cypriot schools.
So it is not easy to realise that CPC (Communist Party of Cyprus) took
an anti-union stand. I will quote an excerpt:
“…CPC sees as its duty to protest by any means, firstly against local
English government which due to its indifference contributes in the
intensification of intercommunal hate between the citizens of Cyprus and
secondly against the fraudulent leaders of this place which spoke and
will speak in the name of the Cypriot people. DOWN WITH ENOSIS – LONG
LIVE THE INDEPENDENCE OF CYPRUS – LONG LIVE THE PROLETARIATS OF THE
WORLD (Neos Kosmos, 25.4.1925)
We see that the understanding for Independence was already in
combination with the effort to escape bicommunal conflicts.
Of course there is no doubt that since then, up until the categorical
acceptance of “Enosis and only Enosis” by AKEL after about 25 years of
inaptitude, the folk sentiment of the Greek-Cypriot community was all
the more oriented toward Greece. The Turkish-Cypriot minority seems to
have lagged behind in terms of following the developments and eventually
takes a position after EOKA’s struggle. When AKEL leaned toward Enosis,
the Trotskyist Party of Cyprus (which was a small communist
organisation) criticized them harshly, as they saw independence as a
self-government of the oppressed classes, without mentioning the
Turkish-Cypriot community.
I quote an excerpt:
“COMRADES,
May this year’s 1^(st) of May find us on the frontlines of the struggle
for the handing down of power to our people, for SELF-GOVERNMENT. The
traitorous abandonment of the position for Self-government on the part
of the stalinist leadership and the adoption of the position for Enosis
should make us come to our senses. We ourselves must stop the poisoning
by Enosis. We must make the ill-fated leaders of our laborer’s
organisations get on the right track of serving workers’ benefits. If
they deny, we should set them aside and keep moving forward in a new
polemic, with class-awareness and decisive leadership for the struggle
for the handing down of power to the workers and farmers. Enosis can
provide us neither better working conditions nor better wages, nor can
it ensure our social emancipation. It will merely exchange our chains.
Nothing more, nothing less.
WORKERS, FARMERS, OPPRESSED,
Move forward in the struggle for our emancipation. The struggle for our
economic and political demands. The battle for the improvement of our
working conditions and Social Security. For the creation of more jobs
for the unemployed. For unemployment benefits. For the organisation and
class awareness of all of the oppressed. For SELF-GOVERNMENT. For a
Government of Workers – Farmers, that feels for the worker and protects
the farmer. For the complete national and social liberation.”
In this text there is no mention of Turkish-Cypriots. But in the
municipal elections the idea of proportionate representation of
Turkish-Cypriots is projected from the candidates of this party and at
the same time the request for Enosis is condemned in exchange for the
request for Self-Government. The request for Enosis is considered a
request which is entirely bourgeois (Ergatis, 15 May 1949).
The organisation of Trotskyists broke up and got dismantled soon after.
One of the reasons is that a fraction of the members becomes for Enosis
as one can witness through the conversational essays in it’s later
editions.
We can see that briefly before the 50s, the Greek-Cypriot left tends to
ambiguously want independence without always condemning Enosis and
combines this demand with an intense worker’s politics (it is not by
chance that the last labour struggles happened back then) and an
understanding of danger that is included in a possible intercommunal
conflict (and certainly other reasons such as geopolitical ones).
I do not know whether you, like myself, see that history actively
justified the dears of the leftists of the era.
Whereas the Greek-Cypriot community votes for “Enosis and only Enosis”
as one in 1950, and for the entire decade it leaves no space for
anything else, I suppose that hidden within the bourgeois class exist
thoughts for independence, because of course it cannot be by chance that
Makarios gave that infamous interview in 1957 or that the national
council of the time takes part, even in disagreement, in the
negotiations in Zurich and London.
In making a report of the 50s, we can in summary say that the entire
revolutionary force of the Cypriot people, Turkish Cypriot and Greek
Cypriot, was wasted on marginalising the conscious participation of the
working class, in order for an intercommunal conflict to be built and
for neither self-government nor Enosis but for dependence to be given.
This is why Cypriot Consciousness is always a newborn consciousness. It
has never overcome the stage of infancy. In consequence, its face is
marked by the sorrow of profound old-age and the main sentiment that it
can feel is the uncertain pain of existence. Cypriot Consciousness
exists trampled under the feet of its adversaries who are caught in an
infinite hand-to-hand battle. From the point of view of where it exists,
on the ground, it sees them as enormous giants. Regardless of the
constant trampling, the Cypriot Consciousness is saved by the fact that
none of the giants is entirely dominant. Otherwise the Cypriot
Consciousness would be lost.
The Cypriot Consciousness thinks itself weak. That’s why it plays
possum, waiting for better days.
The Cypriot Consciousness is weak and humble. It knows it and doesn’t go
to battle. It settles for cackling at the weakness of its far stronger
adversaries who are nonetheless also too weak to impose their own order
of things. In its ears the voices echo like empty words and fanfare.
Cypriot Consciousness has the arrogance of the marginals.
[1] The dominant Greek Cypriot Discourse which called for union with
Greece.
[2] The dominant Greek Cypriot Discourse which called for complete
separation of the two communities.