A Lens on Cyprus Reunification
A Lens on Cyprus Reunification
![An older woman with short, brown hair and glasses wearing a blue, black, and white shirt stands in front of a portrait of a seated woman wearing a blue dress in front of pink curtains.](https://www.sapiens.org/app/uploads/2022/02/01_Stella-1024x684.jpeg)
![A person with a short, dark beard and sideburns wearing a navy-blue T-shirt with a yellow outline of the Batman symbol sits in front of a shelf with books and other items on it.](https://www.sapiens.org/app/uploads/2022/02/02_Kokis-1024x683.jpg)
![A person in a white shirt, blue jean shorts, and dark sandals sits in a brown reclining chair surrounded by framed children’s photos and a mounted deer head on the wall above.](https://www.sapiens.org/app/uploads/2022/02/03_George-684x1024.jpg)
![A person in a white sleeveless shirt and beige shorts sits on a wooden chair warming a metal container on a small gas stove.](https://www.sapiens.org/app/uploads/2022/02/04_Kyriakos-1024x682.jpg)
![A person wearing a black-and-white striped T-shirt and a white apron holds up a small white teacup. Another person in a yellow T-shirt, blue jeans, and a black apron bends down to them with their arm around the other person’s shoulders.](https://www.sapiens.org/app/uploads/2022/02/05_Ferhat-and-Gulhem-1024x684.jpg)
![A person with graying facial hair wearing a blue striped shirt sits at a glass-top table in front of short trees and bushes, and a sign with food on it.](https://www.sapiens.org/app/uploads/2022/02/06_George-1024x683.jpg)
![A person with white hair wearing a dark dress and a black head covering stands under a tree in front of a brown chair and plants in stone pots.](https://www.sapiens.org/app/uploads/2022/02/07_Christina-682x1024.jpg)
![A person wearing a pink shirt holds a large bottle of yellow liquid and stands behind a table with salt-rimmed glasses, half an orange, and other objects on it.](https://www.sapiens.org/app/uploads/2022/02/08_Musa-1024x684.jpg)
![A person wearing a dark blue and green striped shirt sits at a table with a bright red table cloth on a restaurant patio under an open umbrella.](https://www.sapiens.org/app/uploads/2022/02/09_Kemal-1024x768.jpg)
![A photograph taken in a car over the shoulder of a person wearing an orange shirt and glasses shows the person's face in the sideview mirror.](https://www.sapiens.org/app/uploads/2022/02/10_Flora-677x1024.jpg)
![A person wearing a blue tank top and pink shorts sits with their knees to their chest and talks to another person in a multicolored shirt and blue jean shorts as they lean on a blue and white wall.](https://www.sapiens.org/app/uploads/2022/02/11_Anthos-and-Anna-1024x683.jpg)
![A person wearing a purple shirt and a brown watch rests their arm on a wooden chair in front of a table with a purple and blue plaid tablecloth on it.](https://www.sapiens.org/app/uploads/2022/02/12_Kemal-1024x683.jpg)
![A person wearing a white T-shirt, blue jean shorts, and sunglasses sits on the steps of an old stone building with large brown doors.](https://www.sapiens.org/app/uploads/2022/02/13_Petros-1024x684.jpg)
Panikos sat on a beach in Cyprus, dressed in a blue Speedo and straw hat, sipping whiskey with his friends. Behind him, the Mediterranean Sea provided a strangely idyllic backdrop to the topic of our conversation: colonialism, a military coup, and segregation.
“They play with us,” Panikos lamented.
“Who plays with you?” I asked.
“It was the British before, and it is the Turkish now,” he replied.
In 1974, in response to a Greece-backed coup, Turkish troops invaded Cyprus and seized roughly 40 percent of the island. To this day, the country remains divided—ethnically, politically, and geographically. But after nearly half a century, the people want their island back. And that is why I traveled from the U.S. to Cyprus.
I am a Cypriot American anthropologist, and in 2016, I turned my anthropological eye toward my ancestral homeland through a very personal ethnographic expedition. My brother, godbrother, and I walked the circumference of Cyprus—400 miles in 60 days—to gather narratives and images that reflect a multifaceted Cypriot identity. Our goal was to generate a holistic picture of the island’s landscapes, cultures, and people.
We wanted to get past state-sponsored rhetoric, talk to real people living their real lives, and answer one simple question: What unites this divided island?
Cypriots are used to being fought over. Cyprus’ location in the Eastern Mediterranean has attracted nearly every major power in history, from the Mycenaeans to the British Empire. After 82 years of British rule ceased in 1960, Cyprus maintained 14 years of precarious independence. Tensions simmered between the island’s ethnically Turkish and Greek communities, who were then mixed evenly across the country.
These tensions boiled over in 1974. The conflict led to the partitioning of the island into the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), an occupied territory recognized only by Turkey. The regions are separated by a United Nations buffer zone that spans more than 112 miles and is overseen by one of the longest U.N. peacekeeping missions in history.
Read more about the archaeology of Cyprus’ conflict: “Can the Hunt for Skeletons Help Heal a Nation’s Wounds?”
Today there are few Greek Cypriots in the north and few Turkish Cypriots in the south. Nicosia (also called Λευκωσία in Greek and Lefkoşa in Turkish) holds the unenviable title of the world’s last divided capital. A wall splits the city in two, but the communities on either side share a history, habitat, and infrastructure. Despite these connections, the alienated communities remain unfamiliar to one another. And although there have been many attempts to unify Cyprus, the barbed wire that bifurcates the island holds strong.
Before I started this project, I hypothesized that decades of isolation, alienation, and foreign interference had destroyed any unifying voice in Cyprus. As it turned out, I was wrong.
When Panikos and his friends invited us to their weekly beach barbecue, I asked him how he, a Greek Cypriot, felt about Turkish Cypriots. “We are the same people,” he quickly declared. “Even if we do not speak the same language, we find a way to communicate.”
My brother, godbrother, and I interviewed dozens of people during our walk, and we heard this sentiment from nearly everyone. Despite 48 years of division, Greek and Turkish Cypriots consider themselves a single community and desire reunification. The portraits in this photo essay honor the individuals who bravely shared their experiences with us. They highlight the feelings that unite Cypriots and illustrate their persistent capacity for hope.
The island’s prolonged segregation is a cautionary tale for our times. Now more than ever, people around the world are living amid political, economic, racial, and social fracturing. But there is a valuable lesson in these stories from Cyprus. If we look beyond the borders within our own lives, perhaps we will also find more uniting us than dividing us.