Yiannis Papadakis, Echoes From The Dead Zone: Across the Cyprus Divide.

Yiannis Papadakis, Echoes From The Dead Zone: Across the Cyprus Divide (London-New York: I.B. Tauris, 2005) ISBN 185043428X (hardback); 257 pp; 18.99 [pounds sterling].

Trained in the field of social anthropology and already acknowledged in academic circles for his distinctive approach, Associate Professor Yiannis Papadakis returns to tell here the account of the physical and intellectual journey he embarked on while conducting his doctoral research during the first half of the 1990's. It led him to spend time on both sides of the Cyprus divide, and in Turkey, with the objective of undertaking a comparative investigation of nationalisms in Cyprus. The expression "Dead Zone" which Papadakis employs in his book title and which is widely used among Greek Cypriots, refers to the island's buffer zone. By relating his own experiences and findings to each side of this zone Papadakis demonstrates that despite their division both the Turkish and Greek Cypriot communities, their most nationalist elements included, actually perceive of the Cyprus problem and its history in parallel terms; that behaviours and beliefs on one side of the Dead Zone are often echoed, or mirrored, by those on the other.

Papadakis commences by declaring: "All of us in Cyprus, Greek Cypriots on one side of the Dead Zone, Turkish Cypriots on the other, are obsessed by one question: Who is to blame?" We blame "the other", blame the outsider, blame "the enemy", when blame, he intimates, if it must be sought, should perhaps be sought more often within; not just within one's own community, nor just within the ranks of the political elites, but within one's self. Through his encounters in and with Istanbul (for him still initially conceived of as "Constantinople"), on both sides of Nicosia (Lefkosia and Lefkosa), and in the still uniquely mixed Dead Zone village of Pyla/Pile, Papadakis came to appreciate that blame and shame lay not just with the perpetrators of atrocities, but also with those who had "allowed extremists to determine the course of history." Theirs "was the responsibility of indifference and inaction." Probing within, Papadakis questioned what few in Cyprus have had the courage to do, less so the courage to do in such a public manner as Papadakis has now done: "But why should I feel ashamed?" he asked of himself, "No one could blame me for anything.... Clearly I was not to blame for anything. Was I?"

While candidly conceding his own past prejudices and recognizing that acknowledgement of past failings, collective and individual, might assist the construction of a better future, Papadakis ultimately moved beyond the search for blame in and of itself. Without presuming to dictate what tomorrow might hold, he came to the more essential realization that even blame could be objectively attributed, allotted in exact degrees, this should not preclude the living from shaping the future for themselves without being shackled to the past.

As a record of his own cumulative experiences and maturing insight, rather than as a list of dry facts purporting to comprehensively outline an historical era, this is not your standard history of Cyprus and its sociopolitical afflictions. It is much more a "travel account", not so much of Papadakis' geographical wanderings, but rather of his mental/spiritual voyage, boldly advancing where few have dared venture before.

Papadakis for the most part draws apt attention to parallels between the experiences, attributes, beliefs and abuses of Greek and Turkish Cypriots, the "echoes across the dead zone", whether these may be their comparable linguistic relationships with Turkey and Greece, their similar propaganda, warped cartography, their history texts and national museums, or their common, obsession with their own "truths" at the expense of the true sufferings of the other. The self-righteousness on both sides, the failure to account not only for the inter-communal crimes of the past, but also for the intra-communal; the use of the continuing divide as an "alibi" for not addressing the latter, and often also not addressing other ongoing social ills are all poignantly exposed and explained in Papadakis' piercing text. Papadakis not only highlights still prevalent prejudices, but also submits himself for censure, candidly confessing to the blinkered vision of which he had once been possessed, and testifying to the profound sense of "betrayal" he felt at having so many of the "truths" of the other side concealed by teachers, politicians, and even most trusted parents.

While in its entirety this ground-breaking work does provide an extremely proficient, if atypical, picture of the Cyprus problem, there is no strain to impose a particular vision of political reconciliation on the reader. Instead the reader draws her or his own conclusions from the immaculately balanced material that Papadakis furnishes. Exceptionally well written, combining candour and wit in an easily accessible manner devoid of convoluted terminology, the author's text, without detracting from its academic worth, makes for a thrilling, almost suspense-ridden read, where one eagerly awaits the next revelation.

At times though, perhaps Papadakis does take his parallelist approach too far and fails to tackle sufficiently what may be equally critical social and political features where the mirror-image does not hold. Furthermore, of the historical assertions the author makes a few may be legitimately contested, or else would need to be more extensively qualified: that Ataturk, for example, had "set out to eradicate religion." It is, however, within the framework of the second chasm that Papadakis identified in Cyprus that greatest objection could be raised to his assessment. It was, he says, a divide, "as serious perhaps as the Dead Zone, [though] this time between left and right." His evaluation on this front sometimes appears a little too simplistic.

According to Papadakis, Turkish Cypriot left-wing political parties, "considered themselves as Cypriots first," then, in the following order: as "Turkish Cypriots", "Cypriot Turks" and "Turks" (while the reverse order held for those on the right). One wonders whether today, more than a decade on from Papadakis' original research, with the now eased restrictions on physically traversing the Dead Zone and the post-Annan Plan referenda, the same would hold true. The impact of altered domestic and international dynamics combined with the forced baring of political actions (as opposed to pure rhetoric) make it easier also now to retrospectively question the legitimacy of some of Papadakis' original assumptions concerning the political spectrum. One could fairly posit that many on the Turkish Cypriot left, and arguably also the Greek Cypriot left, (albeit for somewhat differing reasons), were even in the early 1990's, at the time of Papadakis' original research, not wholly on the same wavelength, and would surely be more prone now to classify themselves as Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots respectively, or else more likely use the term "Cypriot" not so much as a common denominator, but as a distinction from the "motherlands". As for the right, in both cases, one might again dispute Papadakis' contentions. Possibly under the sway of the more overt and sensational statements of certain prominent political leaders, Papadakis seems to have underplayed a desire amongst many on "the right" to categorically distinguish, if not wholly disassociate themselves from their respective motherlands.

Only brief mention is made in the book's postscript of more recent developments, of the disparate stances, for instance, of DISY and AKEL (major parties of the Greek Cypriot right and left) during the campaign to seek public approval for the Annan Plan--the latest UN plan to seek a comprehensive settlement of the Cyprus dispute; disparate postures at odds not only with one another, but also with what Papadakis' prior portrait of the peaceable, conciliatory left as opposed to the adversarial even fanatical right might have led us to predict. The apparent transformation in the position of CTP, the leading Turkish Cypriot party of the left is hardly broached. Instead, Papadakis refers repeatedly to the Turkish Cypriot leftists as, "the people without a flag," unable to associate themselves comfortably either with the symbols of the Republic of Cyprus, of Turkey or of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). Yet, again, one wonders whether over recent years, particularly as the left has assumed an increasing role in the political institutions of the TRNC, sympathizers, adherents and members of the CTP may actually be in the process (with hiccups and all) of making some peace with the TRNC, its institutions and its symbols. Their former party leader is currently the "Head of State", their present party leader Prime Minister and while both would repudiate the "fetish of the flag", they and their ministers and their party faithful too have gradually become more acclimatized to its presence. One might speculate that they have to some degree even begun to "domesticate" and internalize such symbols of state, making them perhaps increasingly palatable, most noticeably with the (somewhat controversial) initiative that the CTP authorities recently took to modify the TRNC's official state emblem.

Thus, while Papadakis is undoubtedly justified in much of the criticism he heaps on the Greek and Turkish Cypriot "right", when reflecting the ideological divide he does on occasion appear just a tad too close to simulating the very errors of selectivity that he attributes to those in the primary ethno-national divide that he addresses so well. The "blameworthy" right is at times mocked a little too sharply, the "victimized" left absolved too easily of wrongdoings and error. Perhaps the divide in this "other Dead Zone in Cyprus" was not after all as deep as Papadakis once felt. Time, at least, has certainly diminished its depth. Echoes From the Dead Zone is an exceptional book of scarce qualities, of immense utility, even for those unacquainted with the intricacies of Cyprus' travails, in deciphering the island's political cleavages and socio-psychological scars. Yet, it should be read with some caution as to the time frame in which much of the material is embedded, and the extent to which some of Professor Papadakis' secondary contentions remain valid within the present context.

But perhaps we ask too much of Papadakis, dwell excessively on possible faults. Whatever the flaws in this book may be, and they are certainly not numerous, they pale aside the unparalleled success with which Yiannis Papadakis has explained the fundamentals of the principal Cyprus divide. At the expense of being considered a "traitor" and a "spy" (on both sides!), this "double-agent" has proven his mettle on two fronts: both personally and academically, addressing not only many "taboo" issues in an impeccably impartial academic manner, but also frankly disclosing his own past deficiencies and still unconventional present-day convictions.

Efforts are already afoot to translate this landmark study into Turkish and Greek. Publication in these two tongues will hopefully broaden further the reach of Papadakis' enlightening work.

Reviewed by Altay Nevzat

Eastern Mediterranean University